Date:         Fri, 4 Oct 1996 13:22:18 EDT
From: "no tinking, now" <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      TECH: Skinning Delectable Momkat Scanning?

[a bit lengthy, probably off-beat, but maybe it will help some nik
poet, snapping their fingers madly in the coffeehouse of the net?]

1.  Scanning a modest poem

Let's try scanning "Delectable Longings(rev)"... If I can borrow a few
lines from your baby, "~CK~" <vixxen@SOJOURN.COM>?

Premier, let's establish a bit of notation:

_ duh (er...unaccented)
/ dum -- accented or stressed out (like me...)

(incidentally, a good dictionary provides stress markings--read the
front material to see exactly how they do it, although either bold or
little single quotes are common ways...and I don't feel any shame in
looking up stress markings, my stress comes in many shades, but rarely
made from looking up, more likely strain from bowed head...)

[error--while the stress markings in a dictionary may help with longer
words, part of what we are dealing with is stress patterns in speech.  a
much more flexible and complex business...]

DELECTABLE LONGINGS
_/__ /_

(the dictionary tends to show one stress - I actually read this as
_/_/ _/)

                                   Do I dare to eat a peach?
                                                  -T.S. Elliot

I have upon me that lazy haze
_ _ _/ _ _ /_ /
or maybe
_ / _/ _ _ /_ /

[notice that
I have on me that lazy daze
_ / _ / _ /_ /
would be more duhdumduhdum -- singsongy, one might say]

of nicotine, would much prefer your lips, full
_ /_/ , _ / _/ _ /, _

(I think there is a second stress in nicotine, even though
the dictionary doesn't show it.  and while the end of line
often is stressed, I think we're enjambing willfully to the
next line...]

[something like
of nicotine and cellopain without a lip or tongue
_ /_/ _ /_/ _/ _ / _ /
might to the bouncy little rhyme align...]

of luscious offering like this peach, sitting before me
_ /_ /_ / _ /, _/ _/ _

something like that...

2.  Stress, stress, and ACCENT!

Workers?

[viva la revolution!  let's drop ~ck~'s poem and try something else,
because we're not doing well on making the stress patterns stand out...]

try this...read this line out loud, please?

I think that I shall never see

and this one...

I THINK that I shall NEver SEE

Can you hear the drumbeat?  the heartbeat hiding in the words?

duh dum duh dum duh dum duh dum

a poem as lovely as a tree

a POEM as LOVEly AS a TREE

3.  From Momkat

[and putting ourselves in reverse...]

duhdum (_/) is iambic

(I am beek!  You are seed!  They aren't even here to kneed?

Peck the seed and make it bleed?
sorry...tangential insanity here...back to the mainline:)

duhdum duhdum duhdum duhdum duhdum (1, 2, 3, 4, 5--that's it!)

now we have pentameter!

(how strait the gate, when bent a meter, how far
a field we had to go...in snow and rain
to show the kat the skin and bone alone...)

[ictus: the stress placed on certain syllables in a line of verse (or
farce?)  When a poet wishes to mark the ictus, he usually uses the sign
(') ...where his stress pattern is not always the one which the reader
would normally adopt...]

- -A quatrain in iambic tetrameter rhyming a-b-a-b or a-a-b-b-

quatrain...four lines, rhyme abab or aabb

iambic tetrameter - duhdum (thump on the second part) four times...

- -        Cholestrol words clog my veins
         _/_/ / / / /

try this:  cholesterol inside my veins (inside is duhdum!
           _/_/ _/ _/
words clog... seems to be even stress or double stress?

- -        Razor releases blue-red ink

         /_ _/_ / / /

try...   a razor cuts! in vein of ink
         _ /_ / _ / _ /

- -        Concrete images my soul gains
         /_ /__ / / /

try      the concrete image of soulful gains
         _ /_ /_ /_ /

- -        Splatter my pages ans the sink
         /_ / /_ / _ /

maybe    they splatter pages and block the sink
         _ /_ / _/ _/

cholesterol inside my veins
a razor cuts! in vein of ink
the concrete image of soulful gains
they splatter pages and block the sink

(well, it ain't wonderful, but they is iambs all over the place now...
and the little iambs will lie down with the ions, and there will be
thunder and lightening?)

use a, the, and...those little words...to move the stressed syllables
where you want them to be.

4.  In Extremity

summa cum here:
    1.  use the dictionary to check on accented syllables
    2.  duhdumduhdum...thumpity-thumpity-thumpity with fingers or
        whatever helps you feel the rhythm
    3.  I think the first line or two "sets" the rhythm - make sure
        the rhythm is obvious there, and the reader will help you
        put the rest in place.

no poet eye, but jest in place
tink