To Ode or Not to Ode...

So, I've been mostly focused on fiction lately and have completely neglected my poor poetry book :) But an email from the ever awesome Christine Fonseca has it on my mind again. She asked about odes, a poetic form I generally steer clear from because every source I've consulted lists a different set of "rules" for these babies. Which bugs me :D

However, in speaking with a few students and parents, it seems these are still regularly taught in language arts classes (though again, I'm not sure who is teaching what because other than saying that odes were "usually" written in praise of something, I've never come across two sources that give you the same set of instructions on them, and every class I've taken teaches them differently. If at all. The seminar I took in grad school barely touched on them).

But this has me curious - what are the main forms they are teaching in school these days? For which forms are you googling for help? I know my writing blog still regularly gets hits on the how-to write a sonnet and heroic couplets posts. All you teachers/parents/students - what forms have you googling for instructions?

My book, Poetry Pointers, so far contains chapters on two dozen different poetic forms. But I want to make sure I'm covering the ones everyone will need :)

How To Write Heroic Couplets

It’s February, Valentine’s, the month of luuuuuv….so let’s talk a little poetry, shall we? This week we will discuss one of my favorite forms of poetry, the heroic couplet. Heroic couplets were once the epitome of poetry. If you had to read Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales….you’ve read heroic couplets. Poets used this form not just for “regular” poetry, but for social commentaries, arguments, political dissertations…anything and everything you could think of was put into heroic couplet form. It’s name was even derived from the distinguished and lofty subject matter often contained in it’s verses. This form of poetry was immensely popular until around the late 19th century. Nowadays, it is very rarely seen, which is, in my humble opinion, a crying shame. So, what are heroic couplets? And how on earth would you go about writing one?

What are they?

Simply put, a heroic couplet is a pair of rhyming lines, usually written in iambic pentameter.

Elements:

1. Must have pairs of rhyming lines.
This is fairly straight forward. The rhyme scheme would be aabbccddee…In other words, your first and second lines will rhyme, the third and fourth lines will rhyme, the fifth and sixth, and so forth.

Heroic couplets have been historically used for epic poetry. They tend to be very long. But they don’t have to be. A poem can be any length.

2. The meter is usually iambic pentameter.
Iambic pentameter is a pattern of 5 unstressed/stressed syllable pairs.

For example, let’s look at a line from, The Author to Her Book. I will italicize the stressed syllables…

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain

As you can see, there are five stressed syllables, each followed by an unstressed syllables.

Heroic couplets are usually written in iambic pentameter, but can sometimes be written in tetrameter. Tetra = four….so this would mean that instead of each line having five stressed syllables, they would have four.

For other types of meters and an overview on how to find a poem's meter, check out my book So You Have to Write a Poem (info below).

3.Heroic couplets also allow for a caesura
A caesura is a strong pause that breaks up a line of verse in the middle of the line.

For example, another line from the same poem by Anne Bradstreet…

I washed thy face, but more defects I saw

The comma denotes where the caesura occurs.


There are other exceptions and occasional rules, as well as additions to these simple rules that modern heroic couplets have adapted, but the easiest way to spot (or write) a poem in the heroic couplet form is to have pairs of rhyming lines, written in iambic pentameter.

Heroic couplets are wonderful, beautiful, and memorable….the rhyming couplets and the rhythm of the lines are made to be remembered. Try writing your special someone a heroic couplet poem for Valentine’s Day – or try one just for fun and leave it in the comments section. I’d love to see your masterpieces!!

For more detailed examples and step-by-step instructions on how to write heroic couplets and several other forms of poetry, check out my book So You Have to Write a Poem: A Guide for the Non-Poetic!