In Her Face (also question about iambic pentameter)

[Luckey09]

He saw God in her face as she walked with
His hand in hers, down the cold winter street
And even though his empty hands were cold
From the prevailing winds, for now her smile
Sufficed to warm his cold and wanting heart.

Hey guys, I'm trying to figure out iambic pentameter because it's like cool and stuff...so is this right? I've never written anything in it and basically just looked it up on Wikipedia... to my understanding it's usually five lines of da-DUM with ten syllables. Any other critique or comments is greatly welcomed.

[Silas Thorne]

Needn't be five lines, but five stressed syllables per line (of around ten syllables), but it can vary at times. I actually know very little about this though. I'm sure you can probably find JBI or someone else here discussing the Iambic Pentameter if you do a good search of the site.

[Luckey09]

ok thanks

[Bar22do]

"He saw God in her face as she walked with
His hand in hers, down the cold winter street
And even though his empty hands were cold
From the prevailing winds, for now her smile
Sufficed to warm his cold and wanting heart."

I am not iambic specialist, but unless I misunderstood something here, his one hand at least was in hers, i.e. warm, so how come you speak about both his empty hands straight after and that both were cold?
Otherwise the whole poem is a sort of a Swedish shower - warm - cold -warm again... like it happens for two in love walking down the cold winter street... I like your poem, even if it is only an exercise! and thank you for sharing...

[Luckey09]

haha, no I was playing with pronouns. The main characters hands are cold because someone else is holding her hand. I wanted it to be misleading, and some weird interconnection between the two male characters. That the "other guy" could make her smile (because they are the ones holding hands) was enough for the main character...for now.

[MorpheusSandman]

It's a lovely piece; I especially love the image of the winter street.

Iambs = da DUM da DUM
Trochees = DUM da DUM da
Dactyl = DUM da da DUM da da
Anapest = da da DUM da da DUM
Sponde = DUM DUM

Dimeter = 2
Trimeter = 3
Tetrameter = 4
Pentameter = 5
Hexameter = 6
Heptameter = 7
Octameter = 8

Iambic Pentameter = 5 Iambs = but SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS?

To test your own pieces, learn to use scansion with "/" meaning a stress and "-" meaning no-stress. All meters are "cool and stuff" if used in creative ways, actually:

He saw God in her face as she walked with

-//--/--/-

Doesn't work because the line would put the stress on the last word "with" instead of "walked", which is a natural stress. Even though it's hard to find an all encompassing rule when it comes to stresses, verbs and adjectives/adverbs are USUALLY stressed and conjunctions, pronouns and articles usually aren't stressed; there are exceptions and often depends on syntax.

His hand in hers, down the cold winter street
-/-//-//-/

And even though his empty hands were cold

-/-/-/-/-/ = perfect iambic pentameter

From the prevailing winds, for now her smile

/--/-/-/-/ = Normally you wouldn't stress "From" but because there are two consecutive unstressed syllables after it it's possible to stress it.

Sufficed to warm his cold and wanting heart.

-/-/-/-/-/ = Another perfect iambic pentameter line

[Luckey09]

Thanks that helps a lot!