At the suggestion of another user, here is a thread for double dactyls.


I found a nice, concise list of the rules for double dactyls at thie web page:

Here's a detailed list of rules for constructing a double dactyl:
(1) The entire poem is a single sentence.
(2) There are two stanzas of four lines each.
(3) All lines except lines four and eight are two dactylic metrical feet in length.
(4) The first line is usually a rhyming nonsense phrase. For example, "Higgledy piggledy."
(5) The second line often, but not always, introduces the topic of the poem. If you are writing about a person, it helps if the name of the person you are writing about is naturally in the form of a double dactyl. For example, "Hans Christian Andersen."
(6) One line within the second stanza (often the sixth line) is a six-syllable, double-dactylic word, usually an adverb or adjective. For example, "Parthenogenesis."
(7) The fourth and eighth lines are not double dactyls. Instead, these lines consist of one dactyl plus a stressed syllable.
(8) The fourth and eighth lines rhyme with one another. Given the special form of the fourth and eight lines as mentioned in the preceding rule, it follows that the final, rhyming syllable of these lines must be a stressed syllable.

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Here's my first-ever attempt (now edited upon further [and by further I mean initial] reading of the rules myself):

Antique Roadshow
Cheerio dearie-o
Leslie and Leigh Keno
Praising the furniture
Said as they grinned:

“It’s neither Empire nor
Neoclassical but
Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired!
See how it’s pinned?”


Generic Double Dactyl
Oracle boracle
Person Historical
Tales allegorical
If they will fit

Polysyllabical
Iconoclastical
Thusly redacted rhe-
-torical wit


Last edited by Alex Williams; 02/25/06 01:11 PM.