Learning Poetry: Exercise 3

This is the third part in a series of posts documenting my efforts learning more about prosody:

It has been a while since I posted about learning poetry through Stephen Fry's excellent The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within. I'm not trying to recreate his book, so you may want to get your own copy to follow along in more detail, but as with previous posts in this series, I will try to outline the intent of the exercise before my attempts and any discussion thereof.

The Exercise

The third exercise I have attempted (the fourth exercise in the book) brings together all the different elements of iambic pentameter¹ learned so far: pyrrhic² and trochaic³ substitutions, weak/feminine endings⁴, enjambment⁵ and caesura⁶. The challenge is to write 16 lines of iambic pentameter using these variations without losing the iambic rhythm with points being awarded accordingly; five points for the substitutions and two points for enjambment or weak endings. I'll deduct points where the iambic rhythm is left wanting.

The Result

Brilliant lights are shining down on me
tonight, but I believe I might be high.
Perhaps I'll take a chance on this young lady,
if she will take a chance on this young man.

Although she is my wife I know my chances
are not as good as I had hoped they'd be.
It seems she may have spotted my intentions,
I may have blown my shot when I burned lunch.

I'll post the words I've written on my blog,
so you can judge if I followed the rules.
I'm watching Talladega Nights on Crackle,
trying to get this up to sixteen lines.

A knife will soon be sticking into Ricky
Bobby, his screams will curdle blood for some.
Barry the cat is eating food and drinking
water, while I am watching from afar.

The Score

Of course, as with most arty things, the analysis is subjective. You may disagree with my scansion and therefore the points I awarded myself. Please, leave a comment on how you might score my effort. Also, have a try yourself and post your own attempts for this exercise.

In order to score this, we first must determine where the stresses are in each line and mark the various substitutions and such. I will highlight the stresses that I feel are there above the text using / for stressed syllables and – for unstressed.

 /  -  -     /    -   /   -    /   -  /
Brilliant lights are shining down on me (5)
 -  /     -  /  -  /   -   /    -   /
tonight, but I believe I might be high. (2)

The first line starts with a trochee (tum-ti), that's five points and there is an enjambment too for an additional two. No loss of the iambic rhythm so no points docked here.

 -  /    -     /  -    /    -   /    -   / (-)
Perhaps I'll take a chance on this young lady, (2)
 -   /   -    /  -    /    -   /     -   /
if she will take a chance on this young man. (0)

Here we have a hendecasyllabic line (a weak ending) but nothing else interesting. Just two points.

 -    /    -   -  -   /  -   /   -   / (-)
 Although she is my wife I know my chances (7)
  -   /   -   /   - /  -    /     -     /
 are not as good as I had hoped they'd be. (2)

There's a phyrric substitution, weak ending and enjambment going on here.

 -    /   -   /   -   /  -  -  - /  (-)
 It seems she may have spotted my intentions, (7)
 -   /   -    /    -   /    -   /   /     /
 I may have blown my shot when I burned lunch. (-2)

I like the first of these two lines. At first glance, one is tempted to put stress on "my", but I think you'll agree that it flows much better if there's a phyrric substition here. Add that five points to the two for the weak ending and we have seven points. The second line left me in a quandry as one could read it in so many different ways. Is "when I" phyrric or iambic? Is "burned lunch" an iamb or a spondee⁷? I think it's a spondaic substitution and have marked it as such. Unfortunately, there is no prize for spondees in this exercise so I have docked myself two points here (I didn't dock 5 as I feel that the iambic metre remains intact, despite the errant spondee).

  -    /    -    /     -   -   -   /  -  /
 I'll post the words I've written on my blog, (5)
 -    /  -    /   -  /  -    -   -    /
 so you can judge if I followed the rules. (5)

These lines are both straightforward with a single phyrric substitution in each for a total of 10 points.

  -   /    -   / - / -    /    -   /  (-)
 I'm watching Talladega Nights on Crackle, (2)
  /  -   -  /   -    /  -  /   /    /
 trying to get this up to sixteen lines. (3)

The first line here is hendecasyllabic for two points and the second line starts with a trochaic substitution for another five. However, I'm fairly confident that the second line ends with a spondaic substution as in "to six–teen lines". It does seem to be written rather emphatically as though exasperated at the size of the challenge. For this, I docked myself two points as spondees are not part of the challenge. What do you think? Was I too harsh on myself? Should I not have docked points for a spondee?

-   /    -     /   -   /   -   / -  / (-)
A knife will soon be sticking into Ricky (2)
 /  -   -     /      -    / -    /    -    /
Bobby, his screams will curdle blood for some. (7)
 /  -   -   /  -  /  -    /   -    /  (-)
Barry the cat is eating food and drinking (9)
 / -     /   -  -  /   -     /  - /
water, while I am watching from afar. (10)

For the closing verse, we have a weak ending in the first line, a trochaic substitution at the start of the second and the third with another weak ending and two enjambments, and that's all before the final line. The last line starts with two trochaic substitutions before returning to the familiar iambic measure. I feel that this actually works without losing the overall rhythm, so I've given myself 10 points for the two substitutions.

Adding that all up, I get 66 points. Do you agree with how I scored myself? Did you try this exercise for yourself? If so, please post your efforts in the comments and don't forget to let me know if you're following along in the book.

Verse with the metre 'ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum', also known as the Heroic Line. [↩]
A phyrrus is two weak syllables together as in 'ti ti'. [↩]
A trochee is a strong syllable followed by a weak one as in 'tum-ti'. [↩]
An extra, weak syllable is added to the end of a line; 'ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum ti'. Also known as hendecasyllabic. [↩]
Where the meaning runs on from one line to the next. [↩]
Pauses, which break up the flow. [↩]
A spondee is two stressed syllables together as in 'tum tum'. [↩]

Mr. Simpson

I want to take this blog entry to tell you all about the man I knew as Mr. Simpson. The problem is, I don't know that much about him, so instead, I'll tell you what I remember.

Mr. David Simpson was one of my high school English teachers. He was really Dr. Simpson, yet he seemed to go out of his way to avoid the title that he had earned. He was a tall, bespectacled, dark-haired man whom I always remember wearing a suit and tie. He was always impeccably groomed and he had a razor sharp wit.

Mr. Simpson somehow got me to connect with Shakespeare. He had us creating a cast list for our own Romeo & Juliet movie based on whichever contemporary actors we wanted. All mine were from Whose Line Is It Anyway (I was never going to be a casting director), but somehow, his discussion about my justifications for Tony Slattery and Josie Lawrence to be the lead roles was never condescending (it probably should have been). We even watched Romeo & Juliet¹ on VHS, so that we could experience Shakespeare through the actors rather than just from the text. Because of Mr. Simpson, The Taming of the Shrew is my favourite Shakespeare play.

Mr. Simpson encouraged me to write. He gave me access to the Apple Mac in his classroom so that I could spend more time writing my homework with a computer to overcome my poor handwriting. He pushed me to write for the school newspaper (though much to our lament, I never made it to print). I wrote a short science fiction story on my Amiga 500— it was 20-something pages long once printed from the dot matrix printer my Dad had bought me from a bric-a-brac store in Blackpool. When I gave it to him to read, eager to hear what he had to say, Mr. Simpson took it home and read it, and he gave me feedback.

Mr. Simpson helped me cope with bullies.

Mr. Simpson and I had our first trips to the top of the Eiffel Tower together. I know because as we made our journey to the top, he proclaimed to the elevator full of other sixth formers from school, "My first time up the Eiffel Tower, and with Jeff Yates too!" Everyone laughed and though I felt a little embarrassed at the time, I look back on it fondly now. And when I subsequently got left behind at the top of the tower for 30 minutes, Mr. Simpson and the other teachers were happy to let me tag along with them for dinner when they found me alone, waiting at the rendezvous point an hour early².

If my memory were better, I'd be able to tell you more, if my memory were better. The thing is, this might be the best my memory will ever be when it comes to Mr. Simpson. I found out today that sometime in the last few years, he passed away aged 47 years old. I don't know when or how, just that he's gone, that those imagined emails or conversations where we got to reminisce as adults, where I got to thank him for everything that he had done for me— all the things he knew about and the many he didn't, where I got to try and pay him back for his lessons and support will not exist.

It's cliché, but don't wait. Take the opportunity to reach out to those who have influenced your life for the better and thank them. Do it before that opportunity isn't there anymore. I am still crying as I write this. I wish I could take every tear back just to shake his hand and say, "Thank you."

Mr. Simpson was a great teacher and though we hadn't spoken in over 15 years, I will miss him.

The version from before Leo. [↩]
The journey to get there is another story. [↩]

Bloomin' Marvelous

Last April, Chrissy and I took an impromptu trip to one of our favourite places in the Ann Arbor area, The University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens. Rather than wander the trails, enjoy the gardens or pop inside the MiSo house, we decided to take a stroll through the conservatory. Recently changed to be a free exhibit, the conservatory is bursting with fascinating and colourful plants from around the world and well worth a leisurely visit should you have the time.

Given that this was a spur of the moment trip, I didn't even think to bring a camera so here is a selection of photographs taken using my phone¹ (I doubt having a camera would've made much difference other than to prolong our visit while I pretended I could get a perfect shot).

In hindsight, I should have taken notes on what I was photographing, but I didn't; perhaps you can identify some of the plants yourselves and post a helpful comment. Please enjoy.

HTC Evo 4G [↩]

Making a Raised Bed

Last year, my wife made a lasagne garden in the backyard and grew some delicious lasagne. No, not really, but she did grow some delicious vegetables.

This year, after a class on Square Foot Gardening we added an additional 4ft by 4ft bed using the Square Foot Gardening principles. The crop was phenomenal: squash (including ninja zucchinis¹), beans, tomatoes (so many tomatoes), cucumbers and peppers.

Eager to build on her successes, Chrissy wanted another bed for us to grow even more delicious food. Having salvaged some 4×4 posts from our deck before it was destroyed to make way for our patio (post to come), I set to work.

Measuring and cutting

Reclaimed deck posts used for the project

Our reclaimed deck posts were of varying lengths, so the first thing I did was measure them to determine just how big a bed we could make. Some quick calculations determined that given the shortest post available, our bed would be just under 4ft along the inside edge.

As the posts were used, there were some rough spots and quite a few nails left behind. I'm not one for doing more than is necessary so I left most of the nails where they were and just selected the best portion of the post to be used. I marked the correct length and then, with my safety goggles and gloves on, used my reciprocating saw to cut them accordingly.

Marking the Joints

With the four sides of the bed cut, I arranged them on the garage floor and marked where the end of one post butted against the side of the next.

I then marked the outer post of the join to show where the screw holes should be drilled. First, I marked the top to show roughly where the screws should go to ensure a good alignment with the butting post.

Then I turned the post on its side and marked the screw locations.

Construction

With all the posts cut to size and marked for assembly, it was time to drill holes for the screws. Because the posts were 4 inches across and my screws were only 4 inches themselves, I needed to drill into the post so that the screw would secure the bed together. For this, I used two bits. The first to countersink the screw, the other to ensure the screw could pass through the first post and into the second.

With my safety gear on, I took my trusty drill and set to work.

My drill...for drilling — My drill…for drilling

Once all eight holes were drilled, I used my drill and an appropriate driver to drive the screws into the joints and assemble the bed.

Screw holes drilled and sides aligned for joining

Ready for Next Year

The newly created bed now sits resting against the garage wall in anticipation of 2013's growing season and my wife's grand plans.

Ninja zucchinis (or courgettes, as my friends back home might know them) are zucchini squash that you didn't know you had planted. [↩]

SettingsFlyout Class For C#/XAML Windows 8 Apps

One of the interesting things about Windows 8 Modern UI app development is the amount of boilerplate code that the project wizard adds to your project. Why some of the classes are not part of the WinRT base class library is not clear and not hugely important. It is more puzzling to think of the things that are not provided such as a settings flyout wrapper. If you're new to all this, the settings flyout¹ is that thing that appears to the right when you use the Settings charm². Windows has its own implementation for the system level Settings but your app must implement this for its own settings.

I discovered the hard way that to get certified in the Windows Store you must support the settings contract so you can provide "about" information. Adding this isn't particularly difficult, but there is a lot of boilerplate that can be abstracted away. Not only that, but if you're using the WebView, you need to know when the settings come and go to ensure the WebView is properly hidden as it would otherwise draw all over your beautiful settings (I'll perhaps talk about XAML apps and the WebView another time, when I've calmed down a bit).

To simplify this I wrote SettingsFlyout, a simple wrapper that handles the boilerplate activity of showing a UserControl as your settings while providing some handy events to track any settings flyout being shown or hidden. You may notice that other than the dimensions of this flyout, it could easily be adapted to support any of your flyout needs. However, I'm not sure that there are many valid reasons for flyout usage in Modern UI apps other than the standard system implementations and settings. Therefore, I'll leave that up to you, I'd hate to lead you into bad habits.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Windows.UI.Xaml;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Primitives;

namespace SomewhatAbstract
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Provides a wrapper for showing settings with events to track any settings flyout coming or going.
    /// </summary>
    public class SettingsFlyout
    {
        private const int FlyoutWidth = 346;
        private Popup popup;

        /// <summary>
        /// Shows the given control in the flyout.
        /// </summary>
        public void ShowFlyout(UserControl control)
        {
            this.popup = new Popup();
            this.popup.Opened += OnPopupOpened;
            this.popup.Closed += OnPopupClosed;
            Window.Current.Activated += OnWindowActivated;
            this.popup.IsLightDismissEnabled = true;
            this.popup.Width = FlyoutWidth;
            this.popup.Height = Window.Current.Bounds.Height;

            control.Width = FlyoutWidth;
            control.Height = Window.Current.Bounds.Height;

            this.popup.Child = control;
            this.popup.SetValue(Canvas.LeftProperty, Window.Current.Bounds.Width - FlyoutWidth);
            this.popup.SetValue(Canvas.TopProperty, 0);
            this.popup.IsOpen = true;
        }


        private void OnWindowActivated(object sender, Windows.UI.Core.WindowActivatedEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.WindowActivationState == Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindowActivationState.Deactivated)
            {
                this.popup.IsOpen = false;
            }
        }

        private void OnPopupClosed(object sender, object e)
        {
            Window.Current.Activated -= OnWindowActivated;
            OnSettingsClosed(EventArgs.Empty);
        }

        private void OnPopupOpened(object sender, object e)
        {
            OnSettingsOpened(EventArgs.Empty);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Raised to indicate settings flyout has been opened.
        /// </summary>
        public static event EventHandler SettingsOpened;
        private static void OnSettingsOpened(EventArgs args)
        {
            var handler = SettingsFlyout.SettingsOpened;
            if (handler != null)
            {
                handler(null, args);
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Raised to indicate settings flyout has been closed.
        /// </summary>
        public static event EventHandler SettingsClosed;
        private static void OnSettingsClosed(EventArgs args)
        {
            var handler = SettingsFlyout.SettingsClosed;
            if (handler != null)
            {
                handler(null, args);
            }
        }
    }
}

Using the SettingsFlyout class is as simple as this:

// Add an About command
var about = new SettingsCommand("about", "About", (handler) =>
{
    var settings = new SettingsFlyout();
    settings.ShowFlyout(new MyAboutSettingsControl());
});

If you find this useful or you did something similar yourself, I would love to hear about it. Is there something you feel is missing that should be there either in WinRT or the project template? Have you created any useful utility classes like this that could be used in almost every app?

A flyout is the new Windows 8 modern UI term for what we might've called a popup, dialog or tooltip in the past. It's anything that appears over your application and you use a Popup control to show them as you would in Silverlight or WPF. [↩]
The Settings charm is the cog-like button that appears when you swipe from the right or hover your mouse in the lower right (or press Windows+C). It looks a lot like an icon, except it's not. It's a charm. [↩]