Week 1 CW Poetry Older Beginners

[Patricia]

I began using CW Poetry for Older Beginners with my children this
week. The first poem is My Shadow, by RL Stevenson. It is listed as being iambic, and the first two lines of the stanza fits this pattern. But when we try to mark the 3rd and 4th lines, it doesn't sound to us as iambic.

Also, the imitation assignment says we are imitating iambic poetry with nursery rhymes like Jack be Nimble, but most of them don't seem to be iambic either.

There are no helps for marking in the Instructor Guide (please put them in the next version!!) so I'm at a loss.

Are we correct that My Shadow is not iambic in every line?

Thanks for any help.

Patricia

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

Patricia,

Thanks for writing. As for your first question about "I have a little Shadow"

The first line of a poem determines its meter, unless it is highly irregular. SO yes, it's iambic.

Now for line 3 and 4. Yes, they are still iambic.

But I understand why you think that it does not seem so.

Those lines are HYPER cephalous, which means the HEAD (the beginning) of the line has one or two extra syllables added. In the case of line 3 it begins with two extra stresses, and line 4, one extra stressed syllable, but the rest of the line is IAMBIC.
WHY IAMBIC?? Because the dominant meter of the poem is iambic and because, NO regular meter, like line three EVER has two stresses in a row, which defers us back to either trochaic or iambic, BUT since the first two lines are iambic, general consensus is that the poem over-all is the same intent by the author.

This is common. Few meters are regular in poetry. We're looking for the dominant feel in the first line or the dominant feel of the poem at large (if the first line is wholly irregular) to determine the meter of the poem. -- Poems are largely regular, but if they were wholly so, they would be most boring.

What do precisely do you mean when you say there are no marking helps in the IG?

As for Mary had a Little Lamb and Jack Be Nimble, I am editing my initial writing within this post because Kathy looked into it more carefully, and it's not a mistake.

If you look in the CW Poetry For Beginners Core on pages 203 - ff, you will see three lessons under Skill Level 1, Imitation of Iambic Feet.

The very first lesson is on page 204 in the Core. It is about WORD substitution. We picked some random easy to match nursery rhymes to change words for. The point is for the student to find one and two syllables and get the stresses in the right places in the first lesson. In Lesson 2 p 207 we go to iambic meter in particular , and Lesson 3 is Di-syllabic Words.

So, while at first glance it may have confused you to see those two poems in the Workbook, it's important that you always read all the guidelines in the Core book to get the full explanation for the aim of the lesson and how to do it.

I hope that helps. Thanks for posting.

Lene