There are many kinds of meters. I created a collage that shows parking meters, a house meter, a thermometer, and a barometer. Poetry has meter too. In fact there are 9 principle meters in the poet's toolbox. Here I have demonstrated (1) spondee, then (2) iambic, followed by (3) trochee, (4) amphribach, then (5) anapest and (6) dactyl. Those are the best known. After dactyl followed some lesser known meters: (7) choriam, then (8) phyric, and lastly (9) amphrimancer. I have highlighted the text to show the stressed syllables.

This poem is an Amaranth.
The Amaranth is an invented verse form that was created as a teaching tool by Viola Gardner. It makes deliberate use of the 9 most common metric feet. Each line is "one metric foot", withthe pattern changing from line to line.
The Amaranth is a 9 line strophe (it is a stand alone poem); that is metric, using the 9 most common metric feet in a sequence. The sequence can vary as long as it uses one of the 9 meters in each line. Here I show a stressed syllable as "/", while an unstressed one is "-". In my example I used:

L1 Spondee.........(//)
L2 Iamb...............(-/)
L3 Trochee..........(/-)
L4 Amphribach....(-/-)
L5 Anapest..........(--/)
L6 Dactyl.............(/--)
L7 Choriamb.......(/--/) Note; this 4 syllable foot
L8 Phyric.............(--)
L9 Amprimancer..(/-/)

The form can be rhymed at the discretion of the poet. Although the metric restrictions are probably more than enough to contend with by most poets in this verse form.

Some definitions vary. I have seen a couple that insist that the sequence must be fixed as:
L1 Spondee (//)
L2 Iamb (-/)
L3 Pyrrhic (//)
L4 Dactyl (/--)
L5 Trochee (/-)
L6 Amphimacer (/-/)
L7 Choriamb (/--/)
L8 Anapest (--/)
L9 Amphibrach (-/-)
But that is just the sequence originally created by Viola. The key is accommodating the 9 meters in some sequence. Bysides being a good teaching tool, this is a good brain exercise for any poet who wants to bone-up on their meters.

This image was created by the author for this poem using the Photo Mixer app. on 3/5/2018.

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