Poetry mechanics question?

Question

I have a really hard time knowing how to differentiate the stresses in poetry. How do I know if a word is stressed and how do I know if it's read as a light stress (falling inflection, right?) or a heavy stress (rising inflection, if I'm not mistaken). I think I'm tone deaf...

Annabella, one quick question. I am reading a book about poetry mechanics and in it, the author shows examples of poems with iambic meter. One thing that's really confusing me is how words like "and" "the" "in" "at" are sometimes stressed and sometimes not. Does it just depend on the over all rhythm of the poem?

Yes, that answers my question. I learned about all of this mechanics business along time ago but then I just focused on free verse. Now I'd like to go back to understanding mechanics, but it's proven to be a little tricky. By the way, I would've never guessed that you're not a native English speaker. You write flawlessly! If only I could write my second language that well!

Answer 1

Well, for me it's probably easier to know, because, as I am not an English native speaker, I had to learn where to place the stresses in the words.
The English language is tonal, and therefore musical. A stress is marked by a higher pitch in the voice and it is also longer than a weak stress.
I will give you a simple example (although it would be easier verbally!):
when you say the word "tradition", you stress the second syllable. tra-DI-tion. "DI" is slightly longer than the other two, and you voice slightly higher.
But if it is impossible for you to know exactly where you place the stress, you can always check this in a dictionary. Most of them indicate where the stresses fall. On line, you can use: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/. They indicate the stress by putting an apostrophe after the stressed syllable: tra-di'-tion.
Good luck!

Edit: right. Now, what you are talking about is stresses within a sentence. There is the natural rhythm of the English language, but poetry uses certain set rhythms. A poem is a compromise between the two. These small "grammatical" words are usually unstressed, but they can be if they are part of a particular scansion (and if it does not sound too artificial). However, a longer and significant word only has one possible stress. For example, in Shakespeare's sonnet:
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", the first line can be scanned as iambic pentameter, although stressing "to" is somewhat artificial. Maybe an actor reading the poet would not stress it: shall I comPARE thee TO a SUmmer's DAY
Hope I helped!

Answer 2

You are correct in assuming that it depends on the sentence. Here is the ultimate test of how well the line is written: read it without guessing how it "should" be read. if it is a good line, the way you read it will automatically be correct. If you have to artificially stress it one way or the other to make the line work, it wasn't done as well. This is one of the reasons Shakespeare's lines are so memorable, because he made them sound very natural, so much so that most people don't realize that even his unrhymed lines are usually in iambic pentameter...the rhyme and meter considered closest to human speech. So, when you see, "If I should die the let me lie alone" you should say it and it should come out as iambic pentameter. However, if I write, "Only you and I could refrain ourselves", you should see that the beats are anapestic, iambic, anapestic, iambic (3-2-3-2), yet "I" is similarly stressed in both cases. Now, try, "I look upon the face of God"...now "I" is NOT stressed, even though we are once again talking in iambic. Again, if you're writing for a particular sound, it matters; if you're reading, read it naturally and if you hit a hard spot, it meant that you hit a hard spot and "that" part of the poem changed its stress pattern. In all cases, try to read it as if you were speaking naturally, and let the stresses fall as they may.

Answer 3

I was unclear on the "iam" until Annabella and Todd corrected my bad attitude...always listen to what they have to say.