how to write in iambic pentameter ?

a line of perfect iambic pentameter is a line consisting of 5 “iambs”.
Meaning: an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. (bum-BUM). String 5 of them together and that’s pentameter
(da-DA, da-DA, da-DA, da-DA, da-DA) Think of it like a heartbeat.

“Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer’s DAY?” (sonnet 18)
or
“Two HOUSEholds BOTH aLIKE in DIGniTY..” (Romeo & Juliet, act 1 sc.1)

Step 1, understand what iambic pentameter is.

Step 2, choose your words so that they fit the pattern.

You can remember it this way: Iambic pentameter mimics the heartbeat-
“ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM”

From HIAWATHA by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—

BY the SHORES of GITche GUmee,
BY the SHINing BIG-sea-WAter,
STOOD the WIGwam OF noKOmis,
DAUGHTer OF the MOON, noKOmis.

Get the point?

SRM

@srmorgan: except that that’s not iambic pentameter.

Iambic is weak-STRONG, pentameter means 5 in a line.

That’s trochaic tetrameter, because trochaic is STRONG-weak, and there are 4 in a line.

it’s really not as hard as you might think
just get the meter in your thoughts and go
you’ll find that words come out and then they sink
into the proper rhythm of the flow

@cwilbur
I bow to you humbly and stand corrected.

Although I think Mrs Riddle from 8th grade English might want to have a word with you about this..

SRM

Oh, I’ll take on Mrs Riddle, and match her against Sr. Julie and Sr. Margaret.

When you’re taught English grammar, rhetoric, semantics, and prosody by nuns, you don’t forget it, and you don’t ever get it wrong.

@srmorgan; I amb willing to bet the farm that cwilbur is correct about iAMBS vs. TRO-chees.

@applegate; if one writes a poem in only iambic pentameter; it is boring and becomes really doggerel. The great poets deviate from the strict meter in order to make a point. Read Frost’s THE OVEN BIRD and see what he does metrically to the word “Loud.” He makes it physically LOUD by the stress.

And if you are interested in the hidden meanings in poems, this sonnet is worth a careful analysis. It is really not about a warbler (Hint; the ovenbird’s song is: “teaCHER, teaCHER, teaCHER”....repeated six or seven times, getting louder and more insistent at each repetition.

And thank you, everyone, for this question and the answers, which refer to neither boyfriends, beer or farts. I will also conjure up Miss. Roxie Hall, my ninth-grade English teacher, who wore purple most of the time and could hold her own with any nun.

@cwilbur
@gailcalled

I must apologize to you and make the following correction to a previous post:

Edith Riddle was my NINTH grade English teacher, not my eighth grade English teacher. Eighth grade was Howard Hilt and he would be a whole thread on his own.

I feel sort of stupid that I mis-identified something as simple as meter in a poem. It makes we wonder about how I actually managed to earn a BA in English Literature!

SRM

You have to think about the words you say

And then about the way they stress in speech

So that the beat becomes a sort of gait

In groups of two times five per line of text

so Thanks for reading my attempt at play

And hope that you will have a lovely day.

@snd: I am too busy to even pretend that I could whip off an answer in the same meter; funny and well-done, I must say. But I find myself thinking how to change a few words so that the meter around “a sort of gait” would emphasize “gait” metrically, or “the beat” would get a little extra recognition by replacing the iamb. with – well, something that thumps the beat.

@all; I am really very happy that we are discussing poetry rather than Superman’s ability to breathe, or peoples’ capacity for alcohol.

More info (some of it silly, some interesting) here about good sources for understanding
Good poetry

(Disclaimer; cwilbur and I chat here also.)

thanks Gail; I’ll take it as a compliment.

@gailcalled: now I want to write something in iambic pentameter about boyfriends, beer, and farts, and Superman’s ability to breathe when he’s had too much alcohol, just because it’s a challenge.

There was that one of Horace’s odes where he praised the oblivion that drunkenness brings—a very un-Roman sentiment, and technically fascinating because of the elevated language he used. But I don’t remember which one it was, and am too lazy to reread them all again. Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas), indeed.

You WRITE and FIND the STRESS that YOU deSIRE. ExCEPT you DO it MAny MAny TIMES!