The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within

The Ode Less Travelled

Unlocking the Poet Within

Also by Stephen Fry

FICTION

The Liar

The Hippopotamus

Making History

The Stars’ Tennis Balls

NON-FICTION

Paperweight

Moab Is My Washpot

Rescuing the Spectacled Bear

with Hugh Laurie

A Bit of Fry and Laurie

A Bit More Fry and Laurie

Three Bits of Fry and Laurie

Stephen Fry

The Ode Less Travelled

Unlocking the Poet Within

HUTCHINSON

LONDON

Published by Hutchinson in 2005

Copyright © Stephen Fry 2005

Stephen Fry has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in 2005 in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson

HUTCHINSON

The Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SWIV 2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited 20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney New South Wales 2061, Australia

Random House New Zealand Limited 18 Poland Road, Glenfield Auckland 10, New Zealand

Random House South Africa (Pty) Limited Isle of Houghton, Corner Boundary Road & Carse O’Gowrie, Houghton, 2198, South Africa

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

www.randomhouse.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 1-4295-2143-0

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD

For Rory Stuart, a good, superior and great teacher.

Table of Contents

Foreword

How to Read this Book. Three Golden Rules

1 Metre

I How We Speak. Meet Metre. The Great Iamb. The Iambic Pentameter. Poetry Exercises 1 & 2

II End-stopping, Enjambment and Caesura. Poetry Exercise 3. Weak Endings, Trochaic and Pyrhhic Substitutions. Substitutions. Poetry Exercise 4

III More Metres: Four Beats to the Line. Mixed Feet. Poetry Exercise 5

IV Ternary Feet: The Dactyl, The Molossus and Tribrach, The Amphibrach, The Amphimacer, Quaternary Feet. Poetry Exercise 6

V Anglo-Saxon Attitudes. Poetry Exercise 7. Sprung Rhythm.

VI Syllabic Verse. Poetry Exercises 8 & 9: Coleridge’s ‘Lesson for a Boy’.

TABLE OF METRIC FEET

2 Rhyme

I The Basic Categories of Rhyme. Partial Rhymes. Feminine and Triple Rhymes. Rich Rhyme.

II Rhyming Arrangements.

III Good and Bad Rhyme? A Thought Experiment. Rhyming Practice and Rhyming Dictionaries. Poetry Exercise 10

RHYME CATEGORIES

3 Form

I The Stanza. What is Form and Why Bother with It?

II Stanzaic Variations. Open Forms: Terza Rima, The Quatrain, The Rubai, Rhyme Royal, Ottava Rima, Spenserian Stanza. Adopting and Adapting. Poetry Exercise 11

III The Ballad. Poetry Exercise 12

IV Heroic Verse. Poetry Exercise 13

V The Ode: Sapphic, Pindaric, Horatian, The Lyric Ode, Anacreontics.

VI Closed Forms: The Villanelle. Poetry Exercise 14. The Sestina. Poetry Exercise 15. The Pantoum, The Ballade.

VII More Closed Forms: Rondeau, Rondeau Redoublé, Rondel, Roundel, Rondelet, Roundelay, Triolet, Kyrielle. Poetry Exercise 16

VIII Comic Verse: Cento, The Clerihew. The Limerick. Reflections on Comic and Impolite Verse. Light Verse. Parody. Poetry Exercise 17

IX Exotic Forms: Haiku, Senryu, Tanka. Ghazal. Luc Bat. Tanaga. Poetry Exercise 18

X The Sonnet: Petrarchan and Shakespearean. Curtal and caudate sonnets. Sonnet Variations and Romantic Duels. Poetry Exercise 19

XI Shaped Verse. Pattern Poems. Silly, Silly Forms. Acrostics. Poetry Exercise 20

4 Diction and Poetics Today

I The Whale. The Cat and the Act. Madeline. Diction. Being Alert to Language.

II Poetic Vices. Ten Habits of Successful Poets that They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Poetry School, or Chicken Verse for the Soul Is from Mars but You Are What You Read in Just Seven Days or Your Money Back. Getting Noticed. Poetry Today. Goodbye.

INCOMPLETE GLOSSARY OF POETIC TERMS

APPENDIX–Arnaud’s Algorithm

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FURTHER READING

Foreword