The curse of the iamb
by cricketjeff on August 22, 2007. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
I am studying the iamb
Right now my sonnets stink
Writing iambic pentameter
Is harder than you think
Five “tee tums” I have to find
Repeated fourteen times
And if that wasn’t hard enough
I need seven pairs of rhymes
With what I write, I find “tum tee tum”
A bouncier sort of flow
But plain iambic pentameter
Is the way that sonnets go
Romantic rhymes through history
Have taken sonnet form
And I’d really like to have a go
To keep tradition warm
But all the sonnets I have tried
Have lost the rigid beat
I do not want to be denied
So I’m turning up the heat
When I have done with this short tale
And then my working day
I’m back to bashing iambs
Until a sonnet comes my way!
English