Meters are the patterns made by the repeating sounds of words shaped into predictable rhythms. In every culture across the world, meters are honored ceremonially for their ability to change energy, help us learn and remember, cast spells, heal hearts, souls, and bodies, and guide us into sacred consciousness and timeless time.

In each language, meters’ patterns are created by shaping abstract, meaningless patterns out of sound aspects that carry core meaning within that language. Meters in English, for example, rely on the distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables; meters in Chinese rely on differences of pitch,

Any meter, in its essential nature, expresses the mystery where right and left brain, music and thought, unconscious and conscious, touch, Each meter is an ambassador bearing news of the inmost consciousness below the primal depth of our experience of language’s meaningfulness, that fulcrum of mystery on which the weight of our humanity rests.

SCANSION: THREE-STEP METHOD

The scansion of poetry (recognizing and marking its metrical patterns) is not only a deep sensual pleasure, but also a sacred art. Scansion is (along with dancing) one of the most attentive and reverent ways with which to open ourselves to the magical energy patterns that weave throughout poetry. It can also reveal hidden dimensions to the words we speak in the most meaningful moments of daily life.

Until the advent of free verse about a hundred years ago, poetic rhythm was so familiar in our bodies that scansion may not have been necessary. But now, it’s a central tool for those of us who are serious about reclaiming the power of rhythmic language in our current world. Scansion can be a first step to navigating our way back into the body familiarity that guides much of the wisdom of oral-based, earth-centered societies. We will spend plenty of time on scansion on our Meter Magic Journey. Here is a preliminary guide to the three-step scansion method we will use.

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THE THREE-STEP SCANSION METHOD

This method is the best method I know because it does the best job of reminding us to feel meters in our body and in our inner or outer ear. It supports us to avoid the biggest mistake in scansion, which is thinking.

THE 3 BASIC SCANSION TOOLS

/ WAND

Marked above a stressed syllable—one that is louder, longer, and/or higher pitched than those immediately adjacent to it.

u CUP

Marked above an unstressed syllable—one that is softer, shorter, and/or lower pitched than those immediately adjacent to it.

| EDGE

Marked between (not above) groups of syllables. It indicates a footbreak—a division between repeating rhythmic units (commonly called “feet”), that are built on the same basic pattern of wands and cups.

THE 3-STEP SCANSION METHOD

(I learned this from Penelope Laurans, who learned it from Robert Fitzgerald)

1. Mark the wands
2. Mark the cups
3. Look for repeating patterns (“feet”) and mark the boundaries between them with edges
4. Name the line.

EXAMPLE

The sentence “It’s evening, and I call your name” would be scanned this way:

STEP 1 Mark the wands

/ / / /
It’s evening, and I call your name.

(Note: “I” may feel like a stronger syllable than “and,” but if you SAY IT ALOUD (the first rule of scansion!) you will notice that “and” needs to be spoken more strongly than “I.” Imagine shouting it to someone across a room to feel the difference. (Note 1: On a deeper level, if you are wondering how a small word like “and” can sound strong enough for a wand, the answer is that stress is relative: we hear a stress’s power relative to what’s around it. Because of the strength of the verb “call,” the “I” gets softer by comparison, and the “and” ends up being stronger than the two syllables next to it. Note 2: If you are wondering, “but what if I want to emphasize it differently? What if I want to stress the “I” because it is I, and not another person, who is calling?,” the answer is yes, you can do that (it’s called “performative stress”), but a reader seeing it on the page would not know you were doing it unless you changed the meter to make it happen. If you’d like to learn more about this, you’ll find it discussed in my book A Poet’s Ear.)

STEP 2 Next, add the cups

u / u / u / u /
I see you and I call your name.

Usually, a cup goes over each unwanded sylllable.

STEP 3 Finally, listen for repeating patterns and mark the edges

u / | u / | u / | u /
I see you and I call your name.

Looking for patterns, you will notice repetition: cup-wand-cup-wand-cup-wand etc.. Add the edges between them. If you are using a pen and paper, it helps to extend the edge right down between or through the words as needed. An edge is not used at the end of a line of poetry, because the linebreak serves the same purpose. For more complex lines, such as the ones I sometimes scan on this blog and discuss in the podcast, a scansion needs to show the variations in the basic meter.

STEP 4 To finish, name the pattern

The line has four feet with a u/ pattern, so it is an iambic tetrameter.

HOW TO NAME LINES Name the pattern you have revealed by combining the type of foot and the number of feet. The most common types of feet are the anapest (cup-cup-wand), iamb (cup-wand), trochee (wand-cup), and dactyl (wand-cup-cup. 2 feet is dimeter, 3 is trimeter, 4 is tetrameter, 5 is pentameter, 6 is hexameter. So lines are named things like anapestic tetrameter, dactylic hexameter, iambic pentameter, trochaic trimeter, and so on.

If a line has a significant variation, it is best to add that in the name as well (if the sample line above went

/ u | u / | u / | u /
Looking at you, I call your name

you would name it an “iambic tetrameter with a trochee in the first foot.”

ABOUT THE 3-STEP SCANSION METHOD: It forestalls the mind’s habit of imposing an expected pattern, forcing us to stay in our bodies and listen freshly for wands and cups each time we scan. [Learned in 1978 from my teacher, Penelope Laurans of Yale University, who adapted it from a method taught by her husband the poet and translator Robert Fitzgerald.] A video demonstration of the 3-step scansion method may be found on my Youtube channel.

3 LESS COMMON SCANSION TOOLS

\ HALF- WAND

Optional mark to indicate a stress whose intensity falls between a wand and a cup. Can be useful in resolving conflicts and moving forward, and in acknowledging special rhythmic effects. Use sparingly.

(u) GHOST CUP

Used to indicate something at the beginning or end of a line that doesn’t fit the expected pattern: either a missing cup at the beginning or end of a line, or an extra cup at the beginning or end of a line.

Example:

/ u | / u | / u | / (u )
Tyger, tyger, burning bright

If two syllables are missing, use a double ghost cup (uu).

# REST

Used to indicate a missing cup— a pause— in the middle of a line, where a ghost cup would be hard to see among the scansion marks.

THAT’S IT!

Now you know all you need to follow any of my posts or podcasts that involve scansion and meter!

Also feel free to check out my books including the Poetry Witch Workbook How to Scan a Poem (for the most detailed discussion!)….Also, A Poet’s Craft (in in-depth tome addressing scansion among many other aspects of poetry)., Calendars (which includes a free downloadable scansion guide ) and many other books. Videos about meter and scansion may be found on my youtube channel. Also check out my learning community, Meter Magic Spiral, and my list of upcoming classes, workshops, retreats and events here.

EN-RHYTHMING TECHNIQUE

En-rhythming is a term invented by one of my early students, a yoga teacher, to describe how I would coax a rhythm to enter my students’ bodies, bypassing their minds. I start by drumming and reciting poetry in the meter. after I while I stop reciting and continue drumming as they begin to write in the meter. Once they are in their metrical-writing groove, I taper off the drumming.

You can enprhythm on your own by any means that will introduce the meter into your body. You can drum, recite, listen to recordings of yourself reciting, stamp your feet, clap, dance, or simply meditate on a line or passage of poetry in your chosen meter.

Here are some tips:

— Choose a line or passage that sticks exactly to the base meter, without any variations from the basic pattern.

— Choose a line or passage you really love, so you will absorb it more easily.

— Plan to taper off the en-rhythming activity once you are in the groove, so you can focus entirely on your writing process. Once you are deeply familiar with a particular meter, you may find that you entrance yourself into the meter just by thinking of the meter itself.

— At first, use big pieces of paper (maybe from an artists’ sketchbook). You need pages that are wide enough to hold a full line of meter, so you won’t get confused about where the lines end.

— Stick with 3 or 4 feet of the meter to start (1-2 is too short to feel the groove, and 5-6 is too long to keep forward momentum)

— At first, write without stopping. Give yourself only one rule, to stick with the meter. Otherwise, give yourself complete permission to break all rules and defy all inhibitions. Allow yourself to be silly, to use cliches, to write complete nonsense, to repeat lines over and over, to feel pleasure, to be sentimental, to have fun.

Don’t change, fix, or revise anything. If you mess up, this may provide valuable information for you later (see “the metrical code” below). If you notice you’re off the meter, just adjust back into the meter as you move forward.

Enjoy!

If your ear gets confused, here are a few things you can do:

1. Take a break and come back to the line later.

2. Pretend you are shouting the lines to someone across the room, and the lines’ meter will

stand out more. nes’ meter eir meter w clear.

3. Ask someone else to say the line and tell you where they hear the stronger and weaker

syllables.

When you have a few lines you like, say them over to yourself and notice if you feel some tingly

feelings, maybe in your hands or in your heart area. That’s a sure sign of a meter magic spell!

If you want to take it a step further, here are five basic patterns of meter magic you can use and

their special magical qualities:

u u / Anapest: Meter of Fire and Passion

u / Iamb: Meter of Air and Clarity

/ u Trochee: meter of Earth and Strength

/ u u Dactyl: Meter of Water and Love

u / u Amphibrach: Meter of Matrix and Magic

Enjoy!

More Optional Background

Metrical Diversity

What is a Spell? (coming soon)

Underlying all of meter’s aspects is openness to channeling energies larger than ourselves. Before the class, I invite you to practice staying open to yourself, kind to yourself, and curious about yourself. This will help open the way for the meters.

Yours in the Magic,

Annie