In the last two Rhythm in Poetry lessons, we discussed the “iamb” and the “trochee.” Each of these is a two-syllable poetic “foot.” But iambs and trochees aren’t the only kinds of poetic feet. There are other types of two-syllable feet and even a few different three-syllable feet.

Let’s See the Spondee

The “spondee,” (pronounced “SPON-dee”) is a two-syllable foot in which both syllables are stressed. It is not as common as the iamb and the trochee, but it has a very interesting sound, as you’ll hear in a moment.

A poem written in spondees is said to be in “spondaic.” For example, my poem “Snow Day” is written in spondaic, meaning that every syllable is a stressed syllable. Here’s how it begins:

/     /
“Snow day!”
/    /
Fred said.
/    /
“All play.
/     /
Let’s sled!”
 
/   /
“No school!
/    /
Just snow.
/   /
Way cool!
/     /
Let’s go!” 

As you can see, each line in this poem has two syllables, and each syllable is stressed, meaning each line is a single spondee.

While there are some two-syllable words in English in which both syllables are stressed, such as “bookmark,” “handshake,” “groundhog,” “picnic,” “sunset,” etc., most spondees are formed with two words, such as “hip hop,” “sit down,” “go slow,” and so on.

If you are writing poems in spondaic, you can use one-syllable or two-syllable words, as long as all of the syllables are stressed. In general, it is harder to write in spondaic than in iambic or trochaic but, now that you know about spondees, maybe you’ll want to give it a try?

Let’s Meet the Triple Feet

In English, it’s possible for poetic feet to contain more than two syllables. A poem written using three-syllable feet is called “triple meter.”

The most common three-syllable feet are the “dactyl” (pronounced “DAK-tuhl”) and the “anapest” (pronounced “AN-uh-pest”). Let’s start with the dactyl.

Fingers on Your Feet

Have you heard of the flying dinosaur called the pterodactyl? From the Greek language, “ptero” means “wing” and “dactyl” means “finger.” So a pterodactyl gets it’s name from the fact that it has fingers on its wings.

In poetry, a “dactyl” also gets its name from fingers, but in a different way. Just as your fingers have three joints, or knuckles, a dactyl has three syllables.

When a poem is written in dactyls, we call it “dactylic” (pronounced “dack-TILL-ick”). Some examples of dactylic words include “poetry,” “alphabet,” “excellent,” etc. Do you notice how each of these words is stressed on the first syllable (PO-uh-tree, AL-fuh-bet, EX-suh-lent)?

One common form of poem written in dactylic is the “double-dactyl,” also known as a “higgledy-piggledy.” It is called a double-dactyl because every line contains two dactyls, and one of the words is a six-syllable “double-dactylic,” word. It is sometimes called a “higgledy-piggledy” because these are often the first words of the poem.

Here’s one I wrote about Doctor Frankenstein and his monster:

/  -  -  /  -  -
Higgledy-piggledy
/  -   -  / -  -
Modern Prometheus
/  -   -   /    - -
Victor von Frankenstein,
/    - -   /
made a new life
 
/ --/  -     -
Bioelectrically.
/   -    -   /   -   -
Creature was lonely, said,
/   -      -   / -   -
"If you're not busy, please
/    -  - /
make me a wife." 

The Anapest Strikes Back

Just as the word “dactyl” comes from Greek, the word “anapest” comes from a Greek word meaning “struck back” or “reversed.” This is because the anapest is the reverse or opposite of the dactyl. That is, an anapest is a three-syllable foot where the stress is on the last syllable instead of the first.

When you write a poem using anapests, it is called “anapestic.” One of the best-known anapestic poems in English is Clement Moore’s famous poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” also called “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

-     -   /     - -    /     -    -    /   -       -   /
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
-   - /   -    -   /   -     -   / -  - /
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

Another author who wrote stories in anapestic was none other than Dr. Seuss. For example, here are a couple of lines from his book Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

-   -    /      -  -    /     -   -    /    -  -    /
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
-   -   /     -   -    / - - /  -    -   /
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

As you can see, every third syllable is stressed, giving the poem the same rhythm as “A Visit from St. Nicholas”

In fact, except for his “Beginner Books” such as Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, nearly all of Dr. Seuss’ rhyming stories were written in anapestic, including The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears a Who, and The Lorax.

You Have Feet in Your Head

While, as Dr. Seuss’ said, “You have feet in your shoes,” you also now have several new feet in your head. Poetic feet, that is. And, in just these few lessons, you have learned nearly everything you need to know about rhythm in poetry.

You can use these new feet, and the ones we learned earlier, to create rhythmical – or “metrical” – poems of your own and make them just as fun to read as the works of famous poets like Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and Jack Prelutsky.

When you read poems, you will sometimes come across things that don’t sound right to you. Often, this is because people pronounce some words differently depending on where they grew up. The writer of the poem may have grown up somewhere that they pronounce things a little differently than you do.

Probably the most well-known example is the word “tomato.” In Britain, this word is pronounced “toe-MAH-toe,” whereas in America it is pronounced “toe-MAY-toe.”

Similarly, “pajamas” is pronounced “puh-JAW-muhz” (rhymes with “llamas”) in Britain, but can be pronounced either “puh-JAM-uhz” (rhymes with “panoramas”) or “puh-JAW-muhz” in America. And, in America, “dance” rhymes with “France,” while in Britain “dance” is often pronounced “dahns.”

I once wrote a poem for a publisher in India where I rhymed “face” with “vase.” (In America, these two words rhyme with one another.) My publisher was very confused because in India, as well as Britain and much of the world, “vase” is pronounced “vahz” (rhymes with “jaws”).

When I read poems by British authors, sometimes I am surprised by their rhyme choices. For example, I recently saw “speedier” rhymed with “media” because Brits often do not pronounce the r’s at the ends of words.

Dealing with different pronunciations

In general, it’s a good idea to think about who your readers might be. When you run into a word that your readers may pronounce differently than you, you may want to choose a different rhyme. For example, instead of saying:

I like to sing and dance.

You might say:

I like to dance and sing.

A syllable and a half

Another problem you might encounter has to do with the number of syllables in a word.

Many types of poems require counting syllables, or counting “feet,” which are groups of syllables. For example, haiku usually have five syllables on the first and last lines, and seven syllables on the second line. Sonnets normally have five feet of two syllables each, ten syllables total, on each line.

When I write poems, I not only think about the rhymes, but also the rhythm, or “meter” of the words. I usually count feet rather than syllables, but it still requires knowing how many syllables are in any given word.

For most words, the number of syllables is pretty easy to count. “Cat” is clearly a one-syllable word. “Mother” is easy to identify as two syllables. But not every word in English is pronounced the same way by everyone.

Depending on where you live, you may pronounce things a little differently than people in other places. Sometimes this can change the number of syllables you hear when you pronounce certain words.

For example, take the word “poem.” Depending on where you live, this might be pronounced “POE-uhm,” “poe-EHM,” or even “pome.” If you pronounce it “pome,” you might rhyme it with “home,” but this might sound wrong to people in other parts of the country or world. Regardless of how you pronounce it, because other people might pronounce it with a different number of syllables, which would make the rhythm different to them than it is to you.

When a word can be correctly pronounced with one syllable or two, I call these “one-and-a-half-syllable words.” Other examples include words such as “orange” (which some pronounce “OR-uhnj” while others say “ornj”) and “fire” (which many would argue is a one-syllable word, while others say it rhymes with “higher,” which is definitely two syllables.

Similarly, there are many “two-and-a-half-syllable words,” such as “family” (which can be correctly pronounced with either two syllables — “FAM-lee” –or three — “FAM-uh-lee”) and “chocolate” (“CHOK-lit” or “CHOK-uh-lit”).

Dealing with different syllable counts

When you discover that other people may pronounce a certain word differently than you, you can fix the problem in one of two ways.

Substitute a different word

One easy way to solve this issue is to avoid the word by substituting a different one, such as “mother” or “father” in place of “family.”

Change the placement of the word

Another way to fix the problem is by placing the word where it can be pronounced either way without affecting the rhythm.

For example, instead of saying:

My family is very nice.

You might say:

I really like my family.

This way, regardless of whether your readers pronounce “family” as two syllables or three, it doesn’t affect the rhythm of the line.

Whenever you encounter words that others might pronounce differently than you, it’s good to keep these words in mind when you are writing poems that require rhythm or syllable counting so that your poems can be read more easily by everyone, no matter where they are.