Poetic Meter


The ITADS Mnemonic — New and Improved

There are many different poetic meters. But you can get through 90% of all poems by knowing this simple mnemonic device which will allow you to memorize the most basic (and most common) poetic feet. When the accent is on the second syllable of a two syllable word (con-tort), the foot is an "iamb"; the reverse accentual pattern (tor-ture) is a "trochee." Other feet that commonly occur in poetry in English are the "anapest" (two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable as in in-ter-cept), and the "dactyl" (an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables as in su-i-cide). The chart below lays them out for you, as well as one other common foot, the "spondee" (two accented syllables in a row).

There's a progression through this mnemonic:. There are two pairs of meters; items in the first pair have two beats (I, T), while items in the second pair have three beats (A, D). The first item in each pair begins with an unaccented syllable (I, A), and the second item in each pair reverses that (T, D). I think of the fifth metrical foot, the spondee, as something like an "s" attached to the end of a word to signify a plural. So you have four elements as a single unit, an ITAD, then you add to that unit with the S/spondee, making it all more than one unit.

BUT WAIT! THERE"S BEEN A BREAKTHROUGH! Almost three decades after I came up with this mnemonic, I finally have a phrase to attach to it. It's far more catchy than just saying "ITADS," and so it's easier to remember. Of course, that's the whole point of a mnemonic, to create something you can recall quickly.

"I Take A Drink Sometimes"


INITIAL

NAME

PATTERN

CAR NAME

TEAM NAME

I

Iamb

      

Accord

Canucks

T

Trochee

      

Volvo

Steelers

A

Anapest

           

Grand Marquis

Buccaneers

D

Dactyl

           

Cadillac

Patriots

S

Spondee

      

X-5

White Sox
 
Here's a little refresher on how we mark scansion (the "Pattern" column above):
An upward-curving line, like the bottom of the letter "u," is placed over an unaccented syllable:
A stroke moving downward from right to left is placed over an accented syllable:




OK, That's the first half . . .

The second half of this is pretty simple; you just count up the number of feet in a line. This is marked as a form of the word “-meter.” These are the standard English lines:


NAME

NUMBER OF FEET
Monometer One foot
Dimeter Two feet
Trimeter Three feet
Tetrameter Four feet
Pentameter Five feet
Hexameter Six feet
Septameter Seven feet


Now put those halves together . . .

Some examples:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

from "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost.

Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let this Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

from "In Memory of W.B. Yeats," by W.H. Auden.

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

from "A Visit From St. Nicholas," by Clement Moore.

Higgledy-piggledy
Emily Dickinson
Liked to use dashes
Instead of full stops.

Nowadays, faced with such
Idiosyncrasy,
Critics and editors
Send for the cops.

"Emily Dickinson," by Wendy Cope.



It's literally just that simple. What you see on this page got me through a PhD in English, and has been enough to get me through scanning thousands of poems.