1. dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM
Iambic Pentameter
dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM dee-DUM

2. Which syllable is stressed
What is a foot?
In poetry, a foot is a pair of syllables. Sometimes the stressed syllable (the one you say with more force) is the first syllable, sometimes it’s the second. There are even times when both syllables are stressed or unstressed.
Which syllable is stressed
in the following words?
pumpkin
reverse

3. What is a trochee?
An trochee is a pair of syllables, where the first is stressed, and the second is unstressed.
story
meadow
double
keep her
out of

4. What is an iamb?
An iamb is a pair of syllables, where the first is unstressed, and the second is stressed.
awake
unseen
beneath
I hope
The cat

5. What is iambic pentameter?
Iambic pentameter is a line of poetry that is five iambs in a row.
If music be the food of love, play on.
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

6. From “After the Blizzard, Outside My Window” by Lesléa Newman
The still white street a-glitter in the sun
(the STILL white STREET a GLIT-ter IN the SUN
is traversed by a small tuxedo cat
(is TRA-versed BY a SMALL tux-E-do CAT)

7. Now you try it!
In the space below today’s poem, write at least one line of iambic pentameter. The topic can be anything you choose.

8. Iambic Pentameter Poems
Sonnets
Iambic Pentameter Poems

9. What is a sonnet?
A sonnet is fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. Traditionally, the rhyming pattern is three groups of four, and two groups of two. Let’s look at some examples…

10. Sonnet number 18 by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

11. “After the Blizzard, Outside My Window” by Lesléa Newman
Look at today’s poem and use alphabet letters to mark the rhyme pattern.