The following is a playful introduction to writing poems in the Common Meter (or Metre or Measure), written in the common meter! Please enjoy, and share where you wish.
My dear adventurers, it’s me!
My name is Aimee Wood.
Today let’s speak of poetry—
The awful and the good.
Specifically I’d like to chat,
About the common poem.
The beat of iambic format,
Is where I’ve made my home.
This cadence and the rhymes within,
Historically well tred—
From Shakespeare to dear Dickinson,
With ease this prose is read.
To memorize we oft prefer,
The power of the rhyme.
From toddler to the theater,
A mind minds best in time.
So let’s dissect the common mete,
We’ll start with the iamb.
Two syllables, a pair, with beat—
Like this, or that, kablam!
Next link your iambs in a row,
Like I am doing now.
Split words if needed, let them flow,
Then make it rhyme somehow!
The common common scheme is thus—
Eight six and eight and six.
With syllables you’ll make a fuss,
Let iambs be your bricks.
Inflect, my dear! Each second stressed,
And mind it’s all well tuned.
Lines odd and even rhyme when pressed,
And blooms grow best when pruned.
Used well by both the great and small,
The common puts at ease.
Of course, it may not top them all,
But seldom does displease.
The common measure remains my favorite, and my book of three hundred poems, “Merry Meet & Merry Part”, is written exclusively in this lovely lilt.
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