Tags
Beauty and the Beast, Charley Life in Portofino, Robert Burns, Robert Frost, Roslyn Ross, Trimeter
Hello. This is Frank Hubeny. The topic today is trimeter. A line in a poem written in trimeter is one that has three similar feet often corresponding to three accented syllables. The number of unaccented syllables is not as important as the number of accented ones.
For example, the following line has three accented syllables. I wrote them using all capital letters. There are seven unaccented syllables:
In the HOUSE on my SIDE of the STREET.
This line also has three “feet”: (1) “In the HOUSE”, (2) “on my SIDE” and (3) “of the STREET”.
Here is another example with only two unaccented syllables:
TALE as OLD as TIME
This is the first line of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”. The following YouTube link contains the lyrics (Source Amy V):
Can you hear the trimeter sound? The lines should be easy to recognize no matter how they are formatted on the video.
Another example Charley of Life in Portofino mentioned to me in a comment is Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”.
Roslyn Ross provides another example in a recent poem, “Bend”.
In those three examples the poets used trimeter in every line. Sometimes poets will mix trimeter with another meter such as tetrameter, that is four feet per line, or dimeter, two feet per line.
Robert Burns’ poem “My Love is Like a Red Red Rose” is an example of mixing trimeter with tetrameter. The form is also known as a variation of common meter. This YouTube video contains the lyrics sung and played by Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker. (Source glasgow1234)
Can you hear the tetrameter in the first and third lines of each stanza and the trimeter in the second and fourth lines?
Another use of trimeter is in limericks. The first, second and fifth lines of a limerick each have three anapestic feet. The third and fourth lines are in dimeter, or two anapestic feet per line.
A line of trimeter can even be used by itself effectively. In advertising a memorable trimeter line can stand on its own representing a brand. For examples, see: http://www.literarydevices.com/trimeter/
For this challenge, write a poem that uses trimeter lines. All of the lines in the poem do not have to be in trimeter, but enough should be so that one can tell this meter was used on purpose. The poems do not have to rhyme nor must they have any other sound qualities about them.
To participate, write and post your poem. Place the link in the Mister Linky below. The challenge is open for about two days. Drop a comment below if you have questions or just to say hi. (I like chatting in the comment section.) Also read and perhaps even comment on what other people have linked. This is how we get to know each other.
dVerse 
Hi folks! I’ve not been around lately, have been dealing with personal troubles, family illness etc. It’s nice to be back here. OK, I’m off to take up Frank’s trimester challenge…!
Looking forward to it, Diana!
This looks fun, Frank. I’m not sure that I’ll have time for the challenge, but I’ll see what I can do. 🙂
No problem. Thanks for stopping by, Merril!
Welcome. This appeared an hour earlier than I thought I scheduled it, but the pub is now open.
Good evening Frank and everyone who is at the bar at this time of day! I’ve only managed a small poem – I’m preparing for a visit fro my daughter who is will be arriving on Sunday and staying for a few days. Unfortunately, she has to go back the day before my birthday as she will be having her first scan that day!
Happy Birthday in advance, Kim! Small poems are nice.
hank you very much, Frank – it’s in a week’s time 😉
Hello Frank and friends. I got one from my July’s stockpile. Hope you don’t mind me linking that up — was somewhat waiting like a spider for a prompt to fall on its net. 🙂
Old ones are fine! Nice spider-prompt perspective. I usually like posting to prompts.
It’s really about a spider. 😉
I saw the picture of it.
I’ll try to write something in trimeter or mostly trimeter soon. Still need to decide on a topic.
Great! Looking forward to whatever you come up with.
Finally home and ready to slide up to the bar and post a poem. Thank you, Frank for hosting and for choosing tri-meter. I’ll have a flagon of your finest Mead and get my poem posted in a few moments.
Coming right up! There must be some mead around here somewhere.
There is actually a pretty good mead to be had just to your south. Oliver Winery in Indiana does it well, if you go for that kind of thing.
Our daughter goes to Indiana University. We stopped by at Oliver Winery and picked up some of their wines when taking her to school. It is a nice place.
IU! Is she studying writing?
No. She’s in the Kelley Business School, but she writes well. And plays piano.
Nice! I hear the pride in your words. Piano is a marvelous thing – it requires left and right brain interaction like nothing else I know.
Thanks! She plays well and is patient enough to teach very young children.
Well, teachers are extra special people!
Oliver’s Soft Red is an favorite here!
I am not familiar with Oliver’s products, but what we tried tasted very good.
Hey, Frank! Thank you for the mention. It turned my head. Kind of like an owl’s… only it hurt. I’ll have a Heineken… in the bottle. It makes it harder for the flies to get to my drink!
Heineken in the bottle? That’s something I would order. Good point about the flies. Thanks for mentioning Frost’s poem earlier. His poem was what got me thinking about trimeter as a theme. And then I started looking for examples.
Good prompt. Not sure why meter always seems to drag rhyme along with it, but it did with me.
It does not have to rhyme. There are “blank verses” that are metrical but don’t rhyme. In general the meter expects each of the feet to be similarly patterned in terms of accents. I’ll be reading your poem shortly!
For me poetry appears as rhyme and I have to consciously work to write without rhyme, although I hope, always with rhythm.
I find it difficult as well. The rhyme keeps popping into my mind. I liked your poem, “Bend”. I was looking for poems written in trimeter a few days ago as examples for this post and saw yours.
Like minds. Not many of us left.
I wrote a little poem
Linked it with Mr Linky
The beat stuck in my head –
It’s driving me to drinky.
🙂 Nice trimeter poem as a comment!
This is hard and my piece is perhaps all over the place. I am happy because I tried though. Thanks for the challenge. 😊
I am glad you did, Imelda! I’ll be reading it shortly.
This is why meter drives me nuts and I tend to disregard all meter rules in a form: In your first example, I would have stressed “my” rather than “side” – like this – In the HOUSE on MY side of the STREET. I don’t get why you would stress “side.” Perhaps I’ll never hear things like others do. I will, however, have to reread “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” which is one of my favorite Frost poems. I used it in an oral interpretation speech in high school many, many, years ago.
I can see how I could pronounce the sentence the way you have written it. I suspect there isn’t one way to read out loud many sentences. Sometimes I’ll write a poem thinking it sounds perfect. I read it the next day and realize I don’t really pronounce those words the way I thought I did. Something didn’t sound right. At that point I’ll change the poem to try to make sure the sound a reader imagines making comes out as expected. There may be a recording of Frost’s poem on YouTube.
I think I did tetrameter because I was so excited at the Canyon
I wasn’t able to leave a comment on the post, but I liked your poem. I read and could hear most of it as trimeter although the way it was formatted on the page did not appear to be trimeter. However, meter is something we hear rather than see. For example I would combine lines 2 with 3 and 4 with 5. Then you would have two lines each having three accented syllables with similar feet. That would be trimeter.
Thanks for linking it, Jane!
I had some help from the magnetic Oracle this week.
Very nice use of the magnetic Oracle. I wonder if it will work for me?
It’s addictive.
Been away but have landed back and penned a quick response…tricky meter this one.
Nice poem, Paul, about drinking a bit too much. The meter sounded to me as it should.
Drat, am I too late to post my trimeter piece?
If Mister Linky lets you post it, then it is still on time, but it may have expired by now. There are always opportunities to post this later.