Analysis of a self-written stanza in terms of meter?

Question

A long time ago I used to write poetry, and there was one particular stanza that has always stuck with me and seemed inherently rhythmic, but I’m not familiar with the relevant terminology and so I’m not able to articulate what I’m hearing when I recite it. If possible, could someone please break down the meter and timing? A -~\\—~/~—/-~ style representation would be helpful where a tilde represents a stressed syllable and a dash represents a short one. > It was quite an absurd occurrence Which gave rise to reason for Seven words of swift deterrence Which I’ll now relate through more If I had to take a guess - - ~ / - - ~ / - - - - - ~ / - ~ / - ~ - - ~ / - ~ / - - - - - ~ / - ~ / - ~ Or to write it with stress in caps: > it was QUITE / an abSURD / occurrence which gave RISE / to REA- / -son FOR seven WORDS / of SWIFT / deterrence which I’ll NOW / reLATE / through MORE Apologies, my question is a tad broad, but I’d just like to hear any information and analysis that you can provide of this stanza, particularly the timing/meter. It would also be good if you could provide brief definitions of any technical terminology you employ. Finally, apologies if this is the wrong site. If that is the case, please recommend somewhere else that I can ask!

Answer 1

On a quick scan, it looks like you're in the realm of anapestic trimeter.

Anapest is short-short-LONG, or ba-da-BUM.

Trimeter means three feet per line. (The terminology uses the Greek names of numbers, so monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, etc.)

Based on rhyme, I'm assuming your line breaks are after "occurrence," "for," "deterrence," and maybe "more." It's not in perfect meter, but I don't mean that as a criticism; most poems aren't, just that you're varying meter from foot to foot, but seem to be relying mostly on anapests to keep the beat. If you've been having trouble identifying it, it may be because you're missing a few stressed syllables in your own scansion. The second syllable of "occurrence," for instance, would almost certainly be stressed.

I hope this helped. Check out Swinburne's "The Triumph of Time" for another good example of anapests. Or, for more fun ones, "'Twas the night before Christmas" (actually titled "A Visit from St Nicholas" by Clement Clark Moore), or "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Doctor Seuss (a kind of astonishing example of, I think, near-perfect anapestic dimeter).