An Amphibrach(ish) Sonnet

by Jim Wile

If you like meter as much as I do
      then amphibrach meter’s the meter for you.
      With its DA-dit-dit, DA-dit-dit, DA-dit-dit sound,
      for humorous poems, it’s the best one around.

      With dactyls and anapests strewn through and through,
      it chugs right along with a beat that imbues
      the lines of a poem with a good, spritely pace
      that dances along like the hare in the race—

      with the slow-moving tortoise, but this time instead,
      the lead-footed snapper does not pull ahead.
      The hare doesn’t squander his lead, not this time,
      for amphibrach meter is THE most sublime—

at keeping the pace as it waltzes along
with its slow-quick-quick, slow-quick-quick beat going strong.

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Recognized

#39
September
2023

Note: The poem reads better if you pronounce "poem" with one syllable instead of two.

Technically speaking, an amphibrach is defined as dit-DA-dit with a stressed syllable between two unstressed syllables, but if you string a bunch of them together and vary the beginning or ending, you can turn them into a series of dactyls or anapests. No matter how you group them, they all sound pretty much the same when read.

Thanks to SugarRay77 for giving me the name of this meter with her recent poem, September By the Sea, which is a beautiful example of amphibrach meter in a serious poem.

This has always been a favorite of mine and was often used by Dr. Seuss and Bill Peet in their rhyming children's books like Horton Hatches the Egg and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I used it in my poem, Pluto.

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A paean to my favorite meter

An Amphibrach(ish) Sonnet

by Jim Wile

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