Responses to this item all must be
cast in unrhymed pentameter, five feet
per line, one line or more, on any subject:
the middle east and what to do about it;
bullshit, Republican or Democrat;
cars or trains or bicycles or trucks;
your favorite TV show or current movie;
the latest electronic gadgetry;
anxiety, depression, suicide;
you name it.  Any questions?  No?  YOUR TURN:

94 responses total.

For your information, line 5 of your
response zero is not writ in iambs.

I could say something, but I think I won't.

I think it's plain for all to see, the truth:
Not all the lines of post the first here scan
(and mean I not the post which bears the mark
of "1", instead I mean that post which comes
before the post which bears the mark of one).
 
But let's dwell not on such a flaw as this:
The thought was good, and sound, and bound to bring
some small degree of pleasure to our lot,
as passing time goes by in iambed lines.
That Hermes fair did break the rules he set
should not be cause to ridicule, or moan,
instead should spur those on among us who
(from strength or defect in their mind) are wont
to do a better job than post the first.

i do agree with brighn on this here point
and those who think i'm wrong can kiss my grits
cuz sometimes people try and then they fail
to show how clever they can rilly be.

but i knows emm dee meant well cuz he's nice
and grex could do with arsty farsty threads
cuz all this talkin bout things like sharon
and arafat and scat and emm ess daws
is makin me right sick to my stomach
so les hear whatchoo got you clever folks.

The number five - whence comes this urge to chant
in lines the beats of which come this to match?

A numerologist perhaps would say
that in the number five itself there lies
the answer to this puzzle.  I'm not sure.
A number is a cold thing, and abstract,
whereas the rhythm of our human speech
surely is a warm response to life.

The erudite biologist might state
that in our D N A are to be found
bouquets of molecules so arranged
that to the beat of five they resonate,
infusing us with five-ness through and through
so e'en our speech is five-infected.  Well,
this I cannot falsify, nor prove,
but must say I'm inclined to disbelieve -
the gap between our building blocks and our
higher functionality exceeds
the distance such a link could likely span.

I think that I shall let the mystery stand,
a thing of wonder by an agent planned
unknown to me, unlikely to be known -
I shall not plumb the matter to its roots,
but am content just to enjoy the fruits.

As other's, brighn's and oval's efforts show,
it doesn't take an awful lot of skill
to throw together something passable;
and remmers demonstrates that native wit
and Harvard-honed intelligence produce
excellent verse -- though not the requisite
attentiveness to heed the word "UNRHYMED" 
in the instructions, or the common sense 
to realize that humans have five fingers
on which to count the accents in a line!

A point of metaverse I must point out:
"Wit" and "requisite" rhyme too. (You lout!)

View hidden response.

In any case, "unrhymed" to me entails
that rhyme is not required.  You did not say
that no two lines in sequence may not rhyme.

As to the finger argument, it has
a certain weight of common-sense appeal,
until one thinks of dancing to a waltz,
and that we humans do not have three feet.

But waltzing and pentameter do share
one attribute -- an odd number of beats --
which makes them less monotonous than if
an even-numbered rhythm had been used.

(Of course, as this here item clearly shows,
monotony is where you find it.  Any
rhythm will get tiresome someday.)

        awesome

Oh nay, dear John, you did not count correct:
When two do dance, from pair they make one leg,
And one of each of them, it shall stay free
So un et un et un (you see) make tres

My old _Princeton Encyclopedia 
of Poetry and Poetics_ makes the case
that blank verse (which is what we're writing here)
is closest to the form of English speech.
"It is the medium of nearly all
verse drama and of much reflective verse,"
it says, as if to illustrate the point.
And it is true that if you stay alert
while watching CNN or reading Time,
you'll soon have heaps of found pentameters:
"Clinton denies affair with White House intern;
"Pablo Picasso dead at ninety-three";
"Arab-Israeli conflict heating up";
"An unindicted co-conspirator."

Some tetrapods had seven toes, not five.

Something I entered in another item
becomes, with very minor editing:

In other words, the Leatherman not only 
sounds like a hippie faggot affectation, 
it *is* a hippie faggot affectation.

I think too much is made of Leatherman.
It's just a tool, a thing to drill with, so
overall, I find it rather boring.

I think you people are in need of help
I can't believe that I'm typing this crap
md has too much time on his fingers

This item is giving me a headache.

Try aspirin. I hear it helps a lot.

I'm bummed because I missed Iolanthe.
Oops, sorry. Put this in the wrong item.

Most of the last four responses are not iambic pentameter (19 can be read with
four or five stresses).

*ALL* of response 21 was non-iambic.
Shame on you, you awful Keesan pern.

Isn't that the pot calling the kettle
a verse devoid of meter a propos?

I am a bit too short on beauty sleep
please tell me where my lines have gone awry
Without a censor log in place, I'm fine
Honest, I swear I shall consume you all

is that a threat or is it an offer?

Neither.  It's just the way it's gonna be.

perhaps i need to elaborate more
if one consumes another there could be
a punishment severe and lasting long
if in your fridge they find all grexers' heads.
but sometimes in this culture where we dwell
the thought of being eaten ain't so bad
and probably the law won't give a damn
as long as she is of consenting age.

I don't do iambic pentameter.  It cramps my style.

<inserts plug for the poetry cf>

I think that those who want to criticize
should go another place, forget this one,
or try to follow rules when posting here.
To look at twenty one, a case in point, 
she says I may be off a beat, but then
I may be not... so then she fails to see
the point, the line between machine and art:
Machines fail not, and odes so made fall flat
of art, with liberties ta'en here and there...
to show the man behind the poem, to show
the imperfection of the world that is.
 
(And note, per post the first, no lines here rhyme.)

(argh, my iambic pentameter poem got erased!)

I was complaining, not criticizing,
but indeed, freeform is my mode of choice.
I am cathartic when waxing poetic
Rhyme and meter sounds too smarmy to me 
I make this short exercise here, however.

Pentameter has rules that some don't get.
The stresses are supposed to land on beats.
Iambic means you stress it on beat TWO.
Ten syllables, about five beats or less.

Am I the only one who, seeing posts
like Sindi's last, can hear her forcing beats
to prove her point? For me, the word that first
appears in thirty-one has but one beat
that counts, but four in all, and therefore fails:
And yet would she to deign to tell us all 
how this should best be done? I think so not --
the best iamb will fail from time to time,
but roll from tongue like fluid rivers wet --
it should sound trite aloud, when read to show
the beat, but should sound natural when read
to show the meat of what is meant (like this).

=}

Some words have secondary stresses too.
I said 'about five beats', not strictly five.
You write ten syllables, some people don't.
It 'should sound natural' - 'I think so not'.

The rhythm's all that matters anyway:
the _feel_ of it, not just how many beats.
parenthesis $0 shrugs parenthesis

How do you read line three of the above?
You also have ten syllables per line.

Of thirty-three: I do not feel the word
of which I spoke (whose name means "five feet long")
had secondary stress enough to call
it such (as 'secondary' does) -- to say
it so sounds forced to me, not natural.
The other thing you say -- not all my speech
is proper to be said as if we weren't
engaged in games like these: It is a game,
and skill, and art, with sev'ral weights.
One being flow, another beat, and yet
another how it sounds sans both of these.
To point to one and say, "Oho! A fault
it is that I have found..." The fault is yours.

I have no taste to tarry on: So cease
this metaverse. The spirit of this game
is not to parry on therules, but play
within the same. So please, let us proceed.

Am I the only one surprised (and yes,
a little disappointed too, I must
confess) that when, presented with a chance
to finish off this sentence fragment found
in number 32's response, to wit:
"but roll from tongue like... " What unsullied mind
among us still remains, presented with 
an opportunity like this, that would
so innocent, so inoffensive a 
completion make to this as "rivers wet"?  

... depends upon the place the river's found ....

There was a guy named Shakespeare that I think
was rather well known and highly thought of.
He wrote in many styles of which this is
one but there were also many more that
he enjoyed using. Though even he took
many liberties that would shock you all.
Not all his lines kept quite the perfect feel,
and indeed many felt a bit like prose.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss