I would very much like to teach you all about iambic pentameter as the basics of metered prose, but since you need to finish your assignment, if it is an assignment, we’ll cheat.
Iambic pentameter is a ten-syllabled line broken in to five "iambic feet" of two syllables each. Example to follow so don’t worry. Each of the iambic feet has a pattern where the first syllable is low emphasis and the second is high as in the previous example "down UP." And there are five of those "down UPs" in a line. That’s why it’s called pentameter. Penta = five. For example:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.
my MIS-tress EYES-are NOTH-ing LIKE-the SUN.
down UP-down UP-down UP-down UP-down UP
A trochee is the name of measure which goes "UP down," the opposite of an iambic foot. You throw those in for emphasis, usually at the end of a line. Not important.
Now pick a number between three and six and that’s how many "feet" you’ll use. If it was five, your line will look like the one above. Doesn’t matter.
Now pick a pattern of iambic feet or trochees. Like throw a trochee at the beginning or at the end instead of one of the iambic feet.
Now pick a rhyme scheme. What’s a rhyme scheme? The ending syllable of the lines have a rhyme pattern. Like the one-and-twenty poem:
Twenty
say
guineas
away
rubies
free
twenty
me
a
b
c
b
c
d
a
d
or abcbcdad
A sonnet, a particular kind of poem with a specific pattern. The mistress’ eyes sonnet above would have the pattern abab cdcd efef gg. The last two lines make a heroic couplet at the end - the same rhyming word. Like this:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
See the pattern?
The easiest way to finish your assignment is to have two lines that rhyme with each other at a time as in aabbccdd. Or you could have just an alternating pattern of line one rhymes with three and two rhymes with line four as in abab etc. Make it up.
Like this abab:
Ham
Turkey
Ram
Murky
I choose three iambic feet for the first and third line and the same for lines two and four, but with an extra syllable at the end. It has a name, I don’t remember what it is. Not important.
My face is full of ham
I like a happy turkey
I’ll take it from a ram
My sex is kinda murky.
Thirty seconds to compose. Uh, and I don’t like the farm sechs. It just came out that way. And what do you expect for thirty seconds of work?
Anyway, write out a pattern, pick the number of iambic feet, put some words to the pattern and if it doesn’t work, try something else. The key to writing is to get something, anything, down on paper, then edit it. If you want, pick words which rhyme and do what I did above; write them down. You can add the lines in front of the words after you establish a pattern.
You should be more like Cantrip.
Twitchy: "I pulled a Cantrip . . ."
GivePeaceAChance: "If the Tempest had nipples, I'd pinch that shit."
Xylicon: "I'm about to deliver my [Richard] in your face for posting that stupid shit. "
WDF?: "He keeps reaming me... night after night... I'm rather sore."
GivePeaceAChance: "OMG MY NIPS ARE HARD"
llenta: "cantrip, you fail!!!"
Filliam H. Muffman: "i'm on top of dick"