I was at the zoo looking at a yak when I got an idea for a poem—about yaks. As far as I could tell, that yak didn’t do much of anything. It just sort of stood there or walked around slowly and aimlessly. The most interesting thing about it seemed to be its long, shaggy coat. The challenge was to write a poem about a yak using just those two yak facts: the slow walk and the shaggy coat.
I worked on the poem for a while, and then the yickity-yackity, yickity-yak words popped into my head. I liked the sound of them and decided to open the poem with them and then talk about the yak’s shaggy coat. The meter that I selected for the poem seemed to suggest the way that yaks walked. I had no trouble with the second and third lines but couldn’t think of a last line for the first verse. Then I had a brainstorm! I would simply repeat the first line to reinforce the plodding nature of the yak. It worked.
I came up with some nonsense words for the second verse that described both the yak’s shaggy coat and meandering walk. Also, I repeated the first line of that verse as the last line. The truth is that I couldn’t think of anything more to say, but the poem seemed incomplete to me; it needed something. That’s when I had another brainstorm. I would simply repeat the first verse and end where I began. It’s a simple technique, but it can be effective. I’ve always liked this poem. Here it is:
meter: the combination of rhythms in a line of a poem. There are many forms of meters and lots of fancy ways of writing them, and even fancier ways of varying the meter to make a point or stress a particular sound or notion. This topic can get very complicated very fast. If you’re a beginning poet, I suggest you use the simplest meters that you can.
In the following examples of just a few meters, I indicate unstressed syllables with a lowercase dee, and stressed syllables with an uppercase DUM.
Then I show you a sample of each of those meters with a line from one of my own poems.
dee-DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM
My pig put on a bathing suit
DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM
Every day, at ten pas noon,
dee-DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM-dee
Oh, Teddy Bear, dear Teddy,
dee-DUM-dee-dee-DUM-dee-dee-DUM-dee-dee-DUM
I wonder why Dad is so thoroughly mad,
The Yak
Yickity-yackity, yickity-yak,
the yak has a scriffily, scraffily back;
some yaks are brown yaks and some yaks are black,
yickity-yackity, yickity-yak.
Sniggildy-snaggildy, sniggildy-snag,
the yak is all covered with shiggildy-shag;
he walks with a ziggildy-zaggildy-zag,
sniggildy-snaggildy, sniggildy-snag.
Yickity-yackity, yickity-yak,
the yak has a scriffily, scraffily back;
some yaks are brown yaks and some yaks are black,
yickity-yackity, yickity-yak.
I also wrote a poem called “The Giggling Gaggling Gaggle of Geese,” in which I used that same technique of repeating the first line of each verse as the last line of the verse. This time, however, I used the same line all the way through the poem. The poem has five verses, so that line, which is also the title of the poem, appears ten times in the poem. I think that it gives a gooselike, rhythmic feel to the poem that would not be there otherwise.
rhythm: the repeated beat of a poem created by the emphasis given to the syllables. In the English language the simplest rhythm is the one that goes “dee-DUM.” The first syllable sounds soft, and the second sounds hard. This may be the first rhythm we ever experienced in our lives—it’s the way our heartbeat sounds. Another easy rhythm is the reverse: “DUM-dee.”
The Giggling Gaggling Gaggle of Geese
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese,
they keep all the cows and the chickens awake,
they giggle all night giving nobody peace.
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese.
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese,
they chased all the ducks and the swans from the lake.
Oh when will the pranks and noise ever cease
of the giggling gaggling gaggle of geese!
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese,
it seems there’s no end to the mischief they make,
now they have stolen the sheep’s woolen fleece.
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese.
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese,
They ate all the cake that the farmer’s wife baked.
The mischievous geese are now smug and obese.
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese.
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese,
eating that cake was a dreadful mistake.
For when holiday comes they will make a fine feast.
The giggling gaggling gaggle of geese.