That is, they have the same number of feet, and the same placement of stressed and unstressed syllables. Notice that each of the four lines in this stanza have the exact same rhythm. The first foot is “I didn’t” and the second foot is “go camping.” If we were to scan the entire stanza (a “stanza” is what we call a paragraph or verse of a poem), it would look like this: - / - /. I hope you can see that this line has two feet (because there are two stressed syllables in the entire line), and each foot has three syllables (unstressed – stressed – unstressed). Knowing this, we can see that the line “My puppy punched me in the eye” contains four feet, and each foot is two syllables long. So you can usually count the number of feet in a line of poetry simply by counting the dashes after you scan it.
Most poetic feet contain a single stressed syllable, and one or two unstressed syllables. A “ foot” is a group of syllables that create the rhythm of the poem. In Rhythm in Poetry – The Basics, I also explained how poets typically count “feet” rather than syllables. In other words, the line alternates between stressed and unstressed syllables. The first syllable is unstressed, the second is stressed, the third is unstressed, and so on. Now, just by looking at the dashes and slashes, you can easily see that this line of poetry has a repeating rhythm. Using these two simple symbols, we can mark lines of poetry to see their rhythms, like this: - / - / - / - /
The mark for a stressed syllable is a slash (“/”) and the mark for an unstressed syllable is a dash (“-”). The most common method of scanning a poem is to place marks above the syllables to indicate whether they are stressed or unstressed. The process of marking the stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem is called “scanning.” Scanning Poetry Wouldn’t it be better if could make marks to show the stressed and unstressed syllables? Indeed, there is such a system that is commonly used, and it’s called “scansion” (pronounced “scan-shun”). Also, if you have a poem that is already printed on paper, you wouldn’t want to have to rewrite the entire thing just to show the rhythm. The trouble with using this method is that it is awkward to write or type this way, and it makes the poem more difficult to read. To make it easy to spot the stressed and unstressed syllables in the examples I gave, I wrote them in UPPERCASE and lowercase letters, like this: Having rhythms in your poems make them more fun to recite and easier to remember. Knowing this, you can create patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables in your writing to create a rhythm in the words. As I explained in Rhythm in Poetry – The Basics, some syllables in English are “ stressed” – pronounced louder or with more emphasis than others – while other syllables are “unstressed,” meaning they are not emphasized.
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