Syllable Counts

Does anyone here ever use syllable counts for each line? We used to in English last year. I used it on one of my poems here-"My Shooting Star". Does anyone else do that sometimes? Or am I alone on that one?

Only if I'm doing a specific poetry style that calls for it.

no i cant say i do i just let the words flow wih my poems i dont really think about them. its just my thoughts and feelings

sometimes i do.. mostly for poems i write for school tho.. or ones i write that are songs..yep.,.thats about it..

^ Agree.. seems like I write better within some restrictions. my writing's more focused that way

I don't do it the first time I write a poem down, but after I read it alound if it doesn't sound write, then I cheak the meter. It helps me identify and fix flow problems.

Whichever expresses the poem the best.

No. we used this system in english every week for a term and it put me off poetry for about a year. I've only really got back into it this year. I feel it can ruin the flow, can be forced, i find it very hard to get the point across with this system and it annoys me

Sorry to be so blunt i do however think it sounds great and if you can do it easily your gifted

Sondos

I do a syllable count almost everytime i write a poem, Though after a bit of tweaking the draft sometimes certain lines can/will lose count, but then i don't really boast that my poems are all on a syllable count and no reader will be any wiser. I only do this for the same reason i rather write poetry over a story. That is simply, I personally like the challenge. In this case added restraints. Other restraints such as not using the same rhyme and using repitition, but thats a whole topic on its own. Anyway thats my contribution to this topic.

Till next time,
AI- Anonymous Indefinitely

Syllable counts or metering are stapple of formatted poetry and many of the poetry form, and I often make use of it, when using some of those forms or to help with the symmetry and correspondence of rhythm in my poems, to make sure that the rhythm form line to line is too far off one another. I found a great site for counting syllables in my research. Here it is:

http://www.wordscount.info/hw/syllable.jsp