Have you double dactyled? If you’re not a follower of structured or metrical poetry this may be news to you… check out the satire inherent in the structure and have a dabble in private or give us a sample of some of your own trials 😀
bhalsop is a retired, 63 year old lawyer. She has put away all the left brain logic of that profession to give her right brain free access to herself and the world at large. Having begun to write, she soon realized that her skills as an attorney did not suit the life of a fantasist. She joined a free local writers workshop and strove to learn more about this difficult thing ‘we all think we can do, this writing’. It’s been an eye-opening experience for her. It is a journey, not likely undertaken, but well begun. bhalsop’s fond wish is that you will join her and her characters as they spin their tales for you.
I have been writing poetry as a part of my creative writing course. It is quite a stretch. But I have found a way to be political and activist in certain poem types. There is a wonderful reasonably new form that is made for political satire and it is called the Double Dactyl. Think back to those days in high school when you learned that Shakespeare and Chaucer wrote in iambic pentameter and you knew what that meant. The iamb or the dactyl is a metric foot. The iamb can be represented as duh-DUH. The dactyl is DUH-duh-duh. So the iamb is a two beat foot and the dactyl and its reverse the anapest are three beat feet. The anapest is duh-duh-DUH.
I know this stuff seems boring, but if you want to understand poetry written before 1920 or thereabouts, meter is very important in poetry. Even today, reading some…
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Categories: Poetry
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Thank you for reblogging this. I hope it draws some interest. Cheers!
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I believe it will 🙂 The site has many poetic followers and most of them are free form – it’s good to challenge yourself and shake things up a bit. Thanks bhalsop!
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