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~ Tips for Poets ~
 

Norse Alliterative Poetry Workshop

You, writing your first line of Old Meter

It´s spring, you´re sitting at your window and enjoying the sunshine. Suddenly, you feel the urge to write a poem about the beauty of springtime. You scribble down the first line:

"May is the month when many rejoice."

Hmm... you recently learned to write in Old Meter.
Would this line be a good start? You examine it more closely.

Does it have four stresses? Yes.

Does it have an alliterative sound? You suspect it is "m" since it occurs so often. You make a quick check:

The first half-line is "May is the month".
The second half-line is "when many rejoice."

The first stressed syllable of the second half-line is many.
The beginning sound of "ma" is "m", so "m" should be the determining alliterative consonant for the whole line.

Pleased, you realize that in the first half-line,
May is the month, both of the stresses start with an "m".
You have written a line in Old Meter!

Your line would also pass as Old Meter if it went:

- May is the best month of the year.

- Of all the months, May is best.

You realize you have different possibilities of expressing pretty much the the same thing, while still following the Old Meter rules.

Hmm. Maybe April is a better month than May? You decide you want to use "April" now.

- Of all the months, April is best.

What has happened? Not only has "May" become "April" - you have shifted the alliteration of the whole line from "m" to "a"! That is because the "a" of "April" is now the new determining sound for the alliteration.
Fortunately for you, there is already a fitting, alliterating stress in the first line: "all". So in this case, you still have a line that follows Old Meter correctly.

You briefly consider the fact that in this line, "of" is *not* alliterating with "April", even though it also starts with a vowel. That is so because "of" does not bear the stress in this line.

You want to put another alliteration into the line, just for fun. Could you write:
- Of all the months, April is easiest?

No, for you recall that the second half-line´s second stress (which is also the fourth and last stress of the whole line) must *not* alliterate with any of the previous stresses.
"easiest" would alliterate with "April", so you cannot use it here.

You could, however, write:
- Of all that is easy, April is best.

because in the first half-line, it does not matter whether the first or the second stress, or both of them, alliterate with the determining sound.

......And what will be your first line in Old Meter *wink*?

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