Poetry Scanning Worksheet

Poetry Scanning Worksheet

Scanning poetry is not really a difficult job if you say the words out loud softly to yourself, exaggerating the accents slightly. As you do so, pay attention to which syllables are stressed. Every syllable that you stress should be marked with a /. The unstressed syllables should be marked with a u. Another way of referring to unstressed and stressed syllables is short and long syllables.

1. First scan the line marking all stressed syllables. Determine what dominant rhythmic pattern is used

– iambic ( de DA= u / ), trochaic (DA de= / u), anapestic (de de DA=uu / ), dactylic (DA de de= / u u)

spondaic (DA DA= / / ). Most poems will not be completely regular.

2. After determining what kind of rhythm is dominant in the lines, determine how many feet are used in

most lines of the poem. A foot is a metrical unit of poetry. A new foot begins when the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables repeats itself.

Ex: u / u / u / = three feet of iambic meter, or iambic trimeter.

Number of feet:monometer=1, dimeter=2trimeter=3, tetrameter=4, pentameter=5, hexameter=6, etc.

3. Each exercise should have the lines all marked and a two-word label, such as iambic dimeter.

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EXERCISE ONE

Write your own name in the space below, breaking it into syllables and scanning it.

______METER:______

EXERCISE TWO

The stag at eve had drunk his fill

Where shines the moon on Monan's rill.METER:______

EXERCISE THREE

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.METER:______

EXERCISE FOUR

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them,

Volleyed and thundered.METER:______

EXERCISE FIVE

I like to see it lap the Miles –

And lick the Valleys up –METER:______

EXERCISE SIX

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer METER:______

EXERCISE SEVEN

Thus I

Pass by

And die

As one

Unknown

And goneMETER:______

EXERCISE EIGHT

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep

In blanched linen, smooth and lavender’d,METER:______

EXERCISE NINE

Little flitting white fire insect,

Little dancing white fire creature,

Light me with your little candle,

Ere upon my bed I lay me,

Ere in sleep I close my eye lids.METER:______

EXERCISE TEN

God made, they say, the country

And man, they say, the townMETER:______

EXERCISE ELEVEN

The Chameleon changes his color;

He can look like a tree or a wall;

He is timid and shy and he hates to be seen,

So he simply sits down on the grass and grows green,

And pretends he is nothing at all.METER:______

EXERCISE TWELVE

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely seas and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.METER:______