Rhyming Pattern and Anapestic Meter by M. Sakran

When writing formal poetry, two important poetic elements to consider using are rhyme and meter.  

Many poets may be familiar with end word rhyming. For example, if you look at the first two lines of the following poem, you can see that the end words "day" and "way" rhyme:

Now with joy sing aloud on this day, 
with bright sounds and bright tones show the way

When utilizing rhyme in a poem, a poet can experiment with different patterns. As examples, if a poet were to write an eight line single stanza poem, they might use one of the following rhyming patterns:

1. AABBCCDD      2. ABABABAB      3. ABCDABCD      4. AABCBCDD

The first poem has a pattern of rhyming couplets. The second poem has an alternating rhyming scheme. The third poem has a four count pattern, where lines one and five rhyme, lines two and six rhyme, lines three and seven rhyme and lines four and eight rhyme. The last poem combines the couplet structure of the first poem and the alternating pattern of the second. In this poem, the first two lines rhyme, the last two lines rhyme, and in the middle of the poem, there is an alternating rhyme.

Obviously a poet could write a poem that didn't contain any rhyming scheme. Depending on the subject and tone of the poem, this might be preferred. One aspect of rhyme that makes it useful for poetry though, is the idea of expectation of sound. When a person is reading a rhyming poem, once their mind recognizes a rhyming pattern, it can make the poem flow more easily, as the reader unconsciously expects certain sounds at the end of lines.
 
Meter, another poetic element, is in some sense, the beat of a poem. In the English language, certain syllables in words, as well as monosyllabic words in sentences depending on how they are read, are more stressed than other syllables and monosyllabic words in sentences. The combination of stressed and unstressed syllables is what makes up meter.

One form of poetic meter, is anapestic meter. Anapestic meter is a meter where one unit (called a foot) is of the form: unstressed, unstressed, stressed. It is the form of meter that you might hear in a limerick.

If you look at the two lines from the poem above, they were written in anapestic meter. Here they are with unstressed syllables marked with - and stressed syllables marked with /:

-       -       /     -      -/        -    -      /
Now with joy sing aloud on this day, 

-       -           /           -       -          /         -        -     /
with bright sounds and bright tones show the way

As can be seen, each line has three anapestic feet.
 
Below is a full poem that has one stanza, with eight lines, with each line having three anapestic feet. It utilizes rhyming pattern 4 from above.

Now with joy sing aloud on this day, 
with bright sounds and bright tones show the way, 
for the sadness of life can abound, 
and the darkness of night might persist, 
but with joy there can be a new sound, 
as with light all the dark you resist, 
and the hope of the world it does grow, 
as the way with your song you do show. 

At first, meter can be difficult for a poet. They might feel like they don't "hear" the beat. There a few ways to help with this. 

The first is to read poems written in a known meter, with the beat of the meter in mind. A good choice to learn anapestic meter would be to read limericks, which can be written using it. Read the poems with the beat of bum – bum – BUM in your mind. After a while it will flow naturally.

A second tip, if you are writing poetry with meter, is to utilize a dictionary. Dictionaries sometimes come with the syllable stress of words marked. This can help when using multisyllabic words in a poem.

A last tip would be to work with only one meter at a time. It can be very awkward, for example, to switch between anapestic and iambic meter when writing poetry. Once your mind gets used to a poetic beat, stick with it until you are ready to change to something new.

Like rhyme, meter can help with expectation of sound in a poem. If you have a poem with a beat, it can help the reader to flow through the poem, because their mind is expecting the next sounds. If this is combined with a predictable rhyming pattern, the effect can be enhanced.

When writing in anapestic meter, there are a few things to be careful of.

First, some words have more than one choice for which syllable is stressed. A good example might be the word record. A RE-cord, with the first syllable stressed, is a noun. It is a notation of information. By contrast re-CORD, with the second syllable stressed, is a verb. It means to document something. 

The distinction is important when writing in anapestic meter. If a poet uses the wrong use of the word, or the reader reads the word with the alternate stress, it can throw off the meter of the poem, reducing its effectiveness.  For example, read the line:

And the time and the ways hit record

If this line was alone, a person might pronounce the last word as re-CORD. It would mean the subjects of the line are pressing a button that will re-CORD the events. This would fit the anapestic meter and make sense in the line.
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If a poet however, had a different meaning in mind, for example, by starting the next line of the poem with the word "elevations", the poem would still make sense (the subject of the poem reached a new height), but the reader might read the poem incorrectly. If the reader did read it correctly, with the correct use of RE-cord, the meter would be thrown off.

Poets should also be careful not to feel like a form is restrictive. Sometimes when a poet writes in a form, it can feel restrictive to them. They want to use a certain word, but can't, because it doesn't fit the form. A poet might decide to abandon the form for that instance and pick it up later in the poem. For example, consider the line:

And the time and the ways abandon 

In this line, the last word, abandon, does not fit the anapestic meter. The middle syllable is stressed instead of the last. A poet might like this word though and decide to use it anyway.

There are two reasons not to do this though. The first is, if a poem has meter, and that meter breaks at parts, the poem can feel awkward to read, like a song with an off-key note. 

Secondly, the restrictiveness that comes with form can actually promote creativity. Using the line above, if a poet liked the word abandon, but couldn't use it because of the meter, they might instead replace it with something like "do neglect". This would fit the meter, it goes with the general idea of abandon, and it might take the poem in a new direction.

If you're a poet, you should think about writing rhyming poems with anapestic meter. It can give you a chance to experiment with different rhyming schemes and it will help you improve your use of poetic meter. Once you get accustomed to it, you'll find it can add a new dimension to your poetry.

As an idea, you might start with limericks. Depending on style, limericks can use anapestic meter and can have a simple rhyming pattern. Limericks are familiar, and can be a good place to start. Here is an example limerick:

O' the dog his big tail he did wag, 
for with joy he did have a big gag, 
for he stole first one shoe, 
then with glee he stole two, 
and with speed he ran off with her bag.

WRITING PROMPT: Now, it's your turn! Pull out that notebook and experiment with the concepts explained here. Try to create your own limerick using anapestic meter and a simple writing pattern with a holiday theme. 

​M. Sakran is that guy who walks those dogs.  He is usually found standing by the side of the road while one of his dogs plays in a ditch and the other wonders why he isn't getting a treat right now.  When not catering to canines, he tries to be a writer.  He's had over seventy items published, including a collection of poetry called First Try, and has also self-published an eBook called Understanding: poems with explanations.  You can find his poetry related blog at msakran.wordpress.com and his website at msakran.com.