Anapestic pentameter
An anapestic foot (known as an anapest) has two short syllables followed by a long syllable (SSL, or UU/).
Pentameter is five feet per line.
We were unable to find any examples of anapestic pentameter, so this is obviously not a popular combination. Please let us know if you come across any!
However, we made up the following two lines which, we think, is a perfect example of how an anapestic pentameter poem would read:
As we walked down the lane in the sweltering heat of the day
We saw men making hay in a field in the old-fashioned way.
A closer look at the feet in these lines
U = short syllable; / = long syllable; | = division between feet
In response to our request that students send us any examples of anapestic pentameter they come across, Thomas Strand, from Stamford, Connecticut, sent us this:
"I think I have an example of anapestic pentameter. The opening sentence of Cormac McCarthy's The Road begins:
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night . . ."
Although The Road is a novel rather than a poem, that is a perfect example of a line of anapestic pentameter. Many thanks, Thomas!
