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#156038 02/22/06 07:38 PM
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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.

-------------------------
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.
#156039 02/23/06 02:35 AM
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And the two single word lines in the second make up for the lack of any in the first?

Wouldn't want necomers to the art getting the wrong idea now.

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Skittable knitable
Faldage-the-Critical
Authoritatively
Laid down the rule

Alex, admittedly
Abecedarian,
Unhesitatingly
Went back to school

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Alex, maybe you should find the double-dactyl rulz, and post a link to them in your signature.

#156042 02/23/06 04:09 AM
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from the LINK (click here where the letters are a different color, yes the left button on the mouse) already posted in the first entry in this thread...

A dactyl, as you may know, is a poetic foot of the form >-- (ON-off-off). For example, interstate, realize, microphone, cereal, limerick, etc. etc. A double dactyl, naturally enough, is two dactyls in a row.

A double dactyl is also a poem, a form invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal. Quite like a limerick, it has a rigid (if peculiar) structure. Two stanzas, each comprising three lines of dactylic dimeter followed by a line with a dactyl and a single accent. The two stanzas have to rhyme on their last line. The first line of the first stanza is repetitive nonsense. The second line of the first stanza is somebody's name -- strictly speaking, a proper noun. Note that this name must itself be double-dactylic. E.g. Gloria Vanderbilt, Jesus of Nazareth, Gilbert and Sullivan, Archangel Gabriel. In the second stanza, one entire line must be a double-dactylic word. E.g. biopsychology


-------------------------------------------------------

Albatross Balbatross
Baron von Richthofen
Chased a Canadian
Down to the deck

There at such altitudes
Acrodendrophilous
Double-A gunners soon
Blew him to heck

#156043 02/23/06 10:35 AM
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looking intensely for
the <bow emoticon>,
Alex, er, Will-i-ams
d'serves one, indeed.

seemingly, effortless-
ly, he produces, a
double-dactylian
menagerie!


formerly known as etaoin...
#156044 02/23/06 03:02 PM
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Higgledy-Piggledy
Alex the Hogmeister
Deftly deals dactlys
Like so many cards,

Hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds
Serendiptiously
Fly from his fingers --
He's one of our bards.

#156045 02/23/06 03:54 PM
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Higglepod snogglepod
Susan B Anthony
Honored on dollar coins
By U.S. mint

Fighting for suffrage so
Ever-unflaggingly
(Dollars, like voting rights,
Largely unspent)

------------------

Higgity hoggity
Ludwig van Beethoven
Lost all his hearing from
years of abuse

From his mean father so
uberopprobrious
Yet brilliant Ludwig van
Retained his muse

--from Alex who likes a bit of the ultraviolence

Last edited by Alex Williams; 02/23/06 05:21 PM.
#156046 02/23/06 05:51 PM
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ultraviolence Purple proses?

#156047 02/23/06 07:03 PM
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I've created a monster!!

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