Jim Doti—The Bard

The lyrics I wrote for the song the elves sing during the performance of “The Elves and the Shoemaker” and again at the conclusion of the book have an obvious rhyming pattern:

We love to sing our song
   as we sew shoes all night long
Putting meat pies in our tummy
   that taste so warm and yummy.

In spite of the rhyming pattern, somehow it didn’t sound right to me.  One of the nice things about being part of a university community at Chapman is that there are colleagues in various disciplines that one can call upon for help.  In this case, I thought of a dynamic and gifted scholar, Professor Anna Leahy, who teaches poetry for us.

I shared the above poem with Anna when she met with me.  Although she was very polite in giving me encouragement, I could tell she didn’t like it any more than I did.  The difference, though, was that I figured she knew what was wrong with it, and I didn’t.

Instead of pointing out my poem’s weaknesses, she told me if it didn’t sound right to me, that’s a pretty good indication it isn’t right.  Anna went on to say that I should also consider the number of syllables as well as the pattern of emphasis in each line.  On this point, she gave me a quick refresher course on iambic verse.  Since I haven’t had any opportunity since high school to worry about “iambic,” I needed the lesson.  Basically, in iambic, the syllables within a line alternate between stressed and unstressed beats, creating a pattern like:

de/DUM de/DUM de/DUM

Anna noted that Shakespeare often used iambic pentameter where there are 10 syllables to the line conforming to the stressed and unstressed de/DUM pattern.

Here’s an example from the Bard’s “Romeo and Juliet”:

Two Households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break new mutiny.

After Anna’s mini lesson on poetry, I went back to the drawing board.  The following emails transpired:

To:  Anna Leahy

Thanks so much, Anna, for your help.  You are now my muse.

What do you think of the following that begins the last two lines with a gerund:

We love to sing our song.
We sew shoes all night long.
Putting meat pies in our tummy
Tasting warm and yummy.

But here is one that has six syllables in each line, albeit not iambic:

We love to sing our song.
We sew shoes all night long.
Meat pies in our tummy
Taste so warm and yummy.

Thanks much, Jim.

To:  President Doti

I definitely like this version best:

We love to sing our song.
We sew shoes all night long.
Meat pies in our tummy
Taste so warm and yummy.

The first two lines are nice rhyming iambic trimeter, and the six-syllable length works well in the second couplet because those two lines sound more alike and more like a song. In fact, the second two lines are now metrically regular too—they just reverse the iambs to create rhyming trochaic trimeter. As I tell my students—don’t worry too much about the literary terminology as long as you’re figuring out why it sounds good!

Perhaps even more important, given the audience, the last two lines are a complete sentence now, with a strong subject and a real verb (not just a participle form of the verb).

For poets, these little changes are not trifles! They really do shift emphasis, meaning, and the physical sense on the ear and tongue.

–Anna

To:  Anna Leahy

That’s great. That’s the one I like too. I don’t know the reason, but it just sounds the best to me. Please know, though, that it is good to learn about the theory that explains why it sounds better to the ear.  I can’t wait to tell everyone that I reversed the iambs to create rhyming trochaic trimeters.

Jim

To:  President Doti

We all have taste. Expertise allows us to explain the reasons for our tastes!

As you brag about your reversed iambs (and I hope you do!), keep in mind that the “i” in trimeter is pronounced as a short vowel. Trim-it-ur (not try-meat-ur).

Good luck with finishing the book.

–Anna

To:  Anna Leahy

Whew!  Thanks. Just as I would have been trying to impress everyone, I would have blown the pronunciations.  Hope the “trochaic” part is pronounced with a long a.

Jim

To:  President Doti

Yes, Troh-kay-ick.

–Anna

OK.  So now we have it.  The newly revised poem that has six syllables in each line with the first two lines in iambic trimeter and the last two lines in trochaic trimeter is:

We love to sing our song,
We sew shoes all night long.
Meat pies in our tummy
Taste so warm and yummy.
     
       Written by Jim Doti, the Bard
       With a little help from Anna Leahy, the real Bard

 If you’re interested in reading some of Anna’s poetry, I recommend her Constituents of Matter that won the Wick Poetry Prize in 2006.