Post
by Glenny Palmer » Sat Feb 09, 2013 8:15 pm
Hey Wazza.........you wouldn't wanna be waiting by the boozer for me to turn up, eh? A bit late mate but I'm heeere now.
We were sitting in the wool shed. It was too hot in the sun.
Snowy wore his Aussie shorts. You know … the ones that show your bum.
Now he’d dropped some flaky pie crust as his north and south took grips
on a golden crusted home bake that caressed his sun chapped lips.
This stanza is spot on mate.
You’ve chosen the ‘Iambic’ meter which goes weak, strong, weak, strong (beats) etc. What may be confusing you is that you have added an extra weak beat (unstressed syllable) at the start of each line. So your worry about ‘Now’ is sorted. It’s fine. It’s also fine to add or subtract one weak beat at the start or end of a line only…never in the body of the text.
He didn’t see the bulldog ant. To be truthful, nor did I. U R right. Lose the ‘dog’
in bulldog to maintain the ‘weak, strong, weak, strong’ meter.
But it had its ant antenna focussed square on Snowy’s pie.
Well this raised serious problems that no bushy could predict, THIS is precisely where folks come undone. The meter is correct! But…where u have the stress falling is not. We don’t pronounce ‘serious’ as ser-I-ous, we say SER-i-ous. Replace it with ‘alarming’, still 3 sylls but with the STRESS falling on the right syllables.
for a trip through Snowy’s boxers was the path the bull ant picked.
Poor Snowy sat there peacefully, unaware of bull ant’s move, Too many sylls in ‘peacefully’ (3 where 2 are required) Replace with ‘calmly’.
‘till climbing north it finally reached his shorts revealing groove. Meter’s blown!
Lose ‘finally’ & add in ‘Snowy’s’ groove after ‘revealing’. (Only one ‘l’ in ‘til’…un-til)
I reckon it was tuckered out and decided on a kip. Too many sylls in ‘decided’. Replace with ‘settled’.
and a little snack while resting, to sustain it on its trip,
‘Cause suddenly all hell broke loose and Snowy’s up off his date. Just ‘Snow’s’ does it.
Man! That home baked pie went flying, high across the sheep yard gate.
Poor Snowy pirouetted. He can-canned deftly round the floor Lose ‘deftly’ & say
‘a-round’
Tried valiantly to shed his shorts and failed to see the door Replace ‘valiantly’ (4 sylls) with ‘earnestly’ (3 sylls)
For just the briefest ‘time stood still’ he remained (sat) there on the ground Yep. ‘sat’.
Then screaming like a banshee he took to flying round and round. Lose ‘he’.
He waltzed and jived and jitter bugged. He fandangoed and he tapped. Lose ‘and’..tapped.
His two-step was terrific … and how that country boy could rap Lose ‘and’
Now at times when we’re together, for a cold one and a pie
One story is (story’s) guaranteed to make us laugh until we cry Yep. ‘story’s’
It’s not the pain and suffering that the ant caused Snow that day Yep. Lose ‘that’
It’s his anguish when he tells us that “The bastard got away.”
Hope this helps...although I don't think you need too much of that. There used to be my Tutorial on this site..'Unstrained Melody' but I think it's been abducted with Stephen into outer space. I can email it if you want. Goodonyamate & good luck!
Cheeers
Glenny
The purpose of my life is to serve as a warning to others.
so looking for all the help I can get.
Re that reply of mine shredding your poem....I usually don't suggest replacement words etc, & I'm not so curt, but I just don't have a lot of time or personal resources at present, so it was done as quickly as possible. I normally urge the writer to go look for an alternative word with the right number of syllables in it. Any metre probs I mostly have to do via email as the explanatory slashes & dashes go all awry in the site's posting box. I just hope it sufficed. Am emailing you my Tutorial now. I know you will 'get' it as you already have a pretty good command of the 'stuff.'