I just signed up to the group, and I thought I might contribute something as a break from writing my first pony poem. So I was looking back at some of the threads, and saw in the "Ideas for poetry stories" thread that someone nearly 30 weeks ago wanted to write something in the style of Dr Seuss. Seeing as the fan poem I'm writing is in precisely his style, I thought I'd pass on what I've learnt while trawling the web in a more whimsical format, you could say. Also, it's about 250 words long and non-pony, so I couldn't exactly post to Fimfiction proper. Well, here goes:

I'm afraid that I'm late, weeks and months they have passed,
But I saw a post mention the Seussian craft.
If you still yearn to know of his meter and style,
Don't look any further; I'll keep you a while.

The great trademark he used: anapests all in fours, (that is, four per line)
That's a foot and it goes: dum-dum-DUM at its core.
But there's more to be said of his genius, brothers, (and sisters, of course )
Like missing a beat, maybe adding another. (see what I did there?)

(note: only take away the first beat, and only add a beat at the end.)

But what mixes and jiffles it splendidly too,
Is the mixing of meter; what else could he do?
If our Seuss was to use that great foot all the way,
How could children, the readers enjoy it today?

Trochees, DUM-dum, such as this bit:
"One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish."
He blended these with iambs dum-DUM, ('iamb' is actually two syllables, but whatever )
To make long stretches much more fun. (and easier to write too.)

But often did Seuss have dum-DUM-dum you must see,
The amphibrach "Circus McGurkus", so writes he.
More frequent than trochees or iambs but yet second,
Anapests I've returned to to show that, I reckon.

And the couplets are vital too, never forget!
Or else you will look like you're dead in the head.
Oh, I hope you will take my advice if you choose,
To write in the style of a poet named Seuss.

I've been doing a bit of study on a concept that, why bafflingly easy to consider, is one I'm finding a little more difficult to actually integrate and apply.

In a word: stresses.

When we think of a poem, the most basic form is a basic AABB rhyming couplet

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You are dead
so I'll pheonix down you

Anybody, learned or no, can recognize the fundamental poety-ness about these lines.

And it's perfectly understandable that we want to jump from there to busting out our very own iteration of The Raven, or The Illiad, or The Aeneid, and that the raw power of our imagery and metaphor will make it work.

Except it won't, because writing structured poems is just that - structured. - Like building a pyramid, every syllable is shaped, fitted, and slotted into its place.

Stresses are more subtle than rhymes, but like tropes are absolutely everywhere and can't be avoided unless you intend to write a poem without any words. To some extent we apply them intuitively, which is why some poems flow so well to read, why others are choppy, rough, and considered bad. It is literally a case of not just what we say, but the lyrical musicality of how it is said.

a stressed syllable is one that is...
-louder,
-slightly higher pitched,
-and spoken for longer (fraction of a second)
...as compared to unstressed syllables.

Let's look at the same little poem again. This time let's pick out stresses instead of rhymes.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You are dead
so I'll pheo-nix down you

A pair (sometimes triplet) of stresses is called a foot (hence the snazzy title of this thread).
You've heard probably of iambic form, where an iamb (singular) is unstressed-stressed.
So, a quick guide -

iamb / iambic monometer = da-Dum
iambic penta(5)metre = da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum.

It's one of the most common forms of metre around, and I do wonder if the iambs' popularity has anything to do with the human heartbeat, which is also naturally iambic.

We also see iambic trimetre (though really it's 3x2, meaning six iambs per line) in the classical greek forms.

The opposite of an iamb is a trochee, so it's basically: Da-dum , and the same rules apply here, just in reverse.

Let's take a third pass at the little example ditty -

Roses are red tro chee - i amb
Violets are blue tro chee - i amb
You are dead cretic
so I'll pheonix down you pyrr hus - spon dee - i amb

Right, so you've seen iambs and trochees, but what's this other nonsense this poem is cropping up with?

cretic: This is one of the tree syllabic feet, and progresses as a Stress-unstress-Stress.
While I didn't actually know it before, it turns out that the cretic is often applied to act as a sort of junction, helping to smooth out transitions between structures and patterns. Here it does just that.

Pyrrhuus and spondees are sort of the more obscure and less favoured remaining options for a paired stress potential-

Pyrrhuus is double unstressed, while spondee is double stressed. da da and Dum Dum respectively. They are used and useful, but typically it is the iambic and trochic forms that dominate, while pyrrhic and spondic make minor, tactical appearances in a poem (if they appear at all).

let's tale a last look at that example ditty.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You are dead
so I'll pheonix down you

The first two lines are identical, and that's not surprising owing to their traditional nature.

The third line, the cretic, breaks the rigid flow of the trochee-iambic form of the first two lines, allowing enough wriggle room for the vastly different final line to arrive without feeling completely counter-format to the rest of the verse.

Stresses are in every poem we write, and learning to recognize and manipulate them is the difference between having a water gun and being a waterbender, except with words. ()

I've taken the liberty of writing two original poems that in many ways are similiar, but in some ways differ, so that we might compare them and decide which makes better use of metre, and if that makes for the better poem.

Note in advance that both poems are four lines, eight syllables per line, following ABAB rhyme scheme. The only real difference (beyond the words themselves) are the stress patterns.

A
What poet lies, half in sleeping

moonlight nightly daydreams alive

suddenly then brought to waking

co-a-lesced, a thought now formed will strive

B
The words he wrote reflect his thought

Briefly stresses learned and taught

Are posted here and shared with you

Now why don’t you compare these two?

Or, if we deconstruct these examples into their cute little feeties, we'll see what's really going on.

A (now naked!)

1* - dactyl , pyrhhus trochee
trochee trochee trochee iamb
Cretic tribrach trochee
Cretic iamb iamb iamb

B(also naked!)
iamb iamb iamb iamb
trochee trochee 1** iamb
iamb iamb iamb iamb
iamb iamb iamb iamb

* (1, ie a syllable not joined to another)
** (this 1 does technically make the line only seven syllables)

Now, I'd be willing to bet that a non-stress-knowing person would have found the second poem, B, easier to parse, and it's reflected in the more structured, patterned styling of the stress. Poem A, simply, does not follow any such pattern so neatly, and therefore comes across as disjointed, broken, and uneasy to read lyrically.

Moral of the story is simply: Syllable stresses are natural and unavoidable. Understanding them, recognizing them and applying them is a skill that sets the lyrical groundwork for any poet.

ADDITIONAL VIEWING OF CONCEPT CAN BE FOUND HERE, highly recommended for entertainment and educational value, bringing to light many well known examples in modern and not-so-modern culture

Haiku and Tanka -- two Japanese forms of poetry adapted into English.

Now I'm no expert (honestly, I suck at poetry so hard), but I've been studying and practicing these two forms for a while, and let me share what I've learned so far:

Haiku

English haiku typically follow a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. Most people would just leave it at that, but I learned that there's much more to it than counting syllables. The real beauty of these forms come from the juxtaposition of two or more different ideas/concepts/objects in order to create a vivid image in the reader's mind.

Take for example, Basho's Frog Poem as translated by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite.
Side note: I chose this translation because it's the closest to the terse original....um, yes, I can read and understand Japanese. just a little.

furuike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

An old pond
A frog jumps in --
Sound of water

Here, each line presents an object or idea that are somehow related to each other to paint an image in the reader's mind. An old pond. A frog, which jumps into the said pond. These things build up to the last line-- sound of water. From there, the reader's imagination could fill the rest of what's unsaid-- the ripples on the water surface, the lily pad the frog was on before jumping, etc.

Another way to create a vivid image is by juxtaposing objects/ideas/concepts that aren't related, to form a metaphorical relationship between them.

For an example, here's one of mine:

a candlelit flame,
droplets on the window pane
become the night sky

Again, each line presents an object or an idea, but this time they're not typically related to each other. Like, "How does a candlelit flame relate to a window pane, or for that matter, the droplets on the said window pane? And what's any of that got to do with the night sky?" ...right?

Interpretations, in this case, could vary depending on experiences that form the connections between the presented images. For one reader, this could mean a romantic dinner near a window. For another, this could mean a blackout during a raging typhoon. And many other interpretations and so forth...

Okay, that's it for now. Next time, I'll do one for the tanka.

Cheers!

--matcha cheesecake

TL;DR Besides the 5-7-5, haiku writing is about the juxtaposition of two or more different ideas/concepts/objects in order to create a vivid image in the reader's mind.

Adding to ambion's post: let's also not forget that in English, the stress is not set in stone. Especially onesyllabic words can be sometimes unstressed and sometimes stressed. Consider this simple sentence:

I drank the beer.

Normally, one would stress (=say louder) the words "drank" and "beer" because they're the most grammatically important elements in the sentence. So such a sentence would technically be considered to have a iambic meter. However, shifting the stress one syllable backwards (and changing the meter from iamb to trochee) changes the meaning as well.

I (and not you) drank THE beer (and not juice or whatever)

This comes intuitively to English speakers but gets handy when you're writing poetry as well.