Pure Iambics
Limping Iambics
Hendecasyllables
Asclepiadeans
Sapphic Stanzas
Alcaic Stanzas
Hexameters vs Lyric Meters
Note: This page and its companion, “How It’s Done: First Steps” present some of the poetic and instructional wizardry that David Money brought to the inaugural Inter Versiculos workshop in Michigan in 2011.
“The most helpful way to remember how a
meter goes is just to memorize a line or two.”DKM
Pure Iambics
“Purity is not really normal, is it?” DKM
Catullus 4:
Phaselus ille quem videtis hospites
Limping Iambics (Scazontes)
“You’ve got to be thinking about the limp constantly.” DKM
Catullus 8:
Miser Catulle desinas ineptire
Writing Nydia
in Limping Iambics (Scazontes)
Heu bis sodales alma perdidit caeca
flammis et inde negligentiae causa
Alas twice, dear blind girl, you have lost your companions:
first to flames, and then to neglect.
Hendecasyllables
“Here a dactyl can be a problem because there’s only one place for it.”DKM
Catullus 2:
Passer deliciae meae puellae
Asclepiadeans
“Three longs are the hint to the whole Asclepiadic family of meters.”DKM
Horace I.1
Maecenas atavis edite regibus
Horace III.30
Exegi monumentum aere perennius
Writing “Tiffany Balustrade”
in First Asclepiadics
Num celare potes namque epimedium
lautum divitibus tintinat auribus
You cannot hide.
An elegant balustrade
jangles wealthy ears.
Sapphic Stanzas
“That little Adonic, the short 4th line, lends itself to witty remarks.”DKM
Horace II.10
Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum
semper urgendo neque dum procellas
cautus horrescis nimium premendo
litus iniquum
Alcaic Stanzas
“The movement from slowness to extreme slowness to rapidity is extremely subtle, and gives the poet quite a lot of possibilities.” DKM
Horace II.14
Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume
labuntur anni nec pietas moram
rugis et instanti senectae
adferet indomitaeque morti
Hexameters vs. Lyric Meters
“There’s a reason, I think, why hexameters were used for very long poems . . . .” DKM