Playing with Anapests in Monotetra

Today’s Poetics prompt at dVerse Poets Pub is to use a movie quote in a poem. Mish provided a list to choose from. When I saw “It’s alive! It’s alive!” from Frankenstein (1931), the repetition reminded me of a poetry form. I looked back through my poems from last OctPoWriMo and found it in my post from October 6, 2020 Following Desire. The form is Monotetra.

The instructions for the Monotetra are a little confusing because it talks about number of feet and also number of syllables. If you look at my poem in that post, “Desire is the ear at the curtain,” I was counting syllables (eight), and rhyming, but wasn’t paying attention to meter. The instructions for the Monotetra form assume a poetic metrical foot to have two syllables, but a poetic foot can have more than two syllables: like the dactyl (stressed, unstressed, unstressed) I used in my last post, and the anapest (unstressed, unstressed, stressed) which is how I read “It’s alive!”

Since I want to play with anapestic meter instead of 8 syllables this will be an alternate form of a Monotetra. It will still be made of rhyming quatrains, and the fourth line will repeat, but each line will be in anapestic dimeter.

Revival

When a song with a drive
brings the bees to the hive
and the throng into thrive
“It’s alive! It’s alive!”

like a wrong she deprives
and with love to connive
and belong she can strive
Hope’s alive! It’s alive!

on the path to revive
when the depth of the dive
meets the wrath she archived
Hope’s alive! It’s alive!

like a storm will arrive
hear the clap, count to five
stay informed to survive
“It’s alive! It’s alive!”

Published by marialberg

I am a fiction writer, poet and lyricist inspired by a life of leaping without hesitation. I was quoted and pictured in Ernie K-Doe: The R & B Emperor of New Orleans by Ben Sandmel. My short stories have been published in Five on the Fifth, Waking Writer, and Fictional Pairings. I am the author and photo-illustrator of Gator McBumpypants picturebooks. I enjoy clothing, costume and puzzle design. View more posts