5. Iambic Pentameter

... being an exploration of the poetic form that links William Shakespeare, Paul Daniels, and arguably the best homegrown footballer that Hull City have produced in recent years.

You have to love a bit of iambic pentameter. It is the poetic rhythm that Shakespeare used to write his sonnets. And his plays. And once you get the knack of listening to it, reading it, or writing in it, it takes up residence in your mind and if you aren’t careful, you can actually start thinking in it. Before you know it, you are coming across it everywhere, and if you are any sort of a poet or lyricist, it becomes increasingly difficult to write anything that isn’t divided into lines of five feet (pairs of syllables), each in the form of an iamb (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one). You won’t be able to help yourself. The form invests everything written in it with an delicious level of gravitas.

Once I had got the hang of it, I wrote this piece to show off what I could do. It’s one that I enjoy performing, because it instantly sounds Shakesperian when read in the correct tone, despite any failings in its content. Eagle eyed readers will note that the first line actually has six iambs - but in my book those little aberrations just add to the joy of such stuff. Once you have the rules established in your own mind, you can break them whenever you like, it just mixes things up a bit and adds a little variety.

Iambic Pentameter

"De dum de dum" he said, "De dum de dum de der"
He spoke in iambic pentameter
Each syllable arranged to fit the beat
"I fit therefore iamb and have five feet"
We listened to the rhythm of his speech
And thought such language well out of our reach
But over time it seemed to take a grip
On every heart and mind and tongue and lip
And soon we were unable to convey
The thoughts we had in any other way

Then someone said "It is a vile constraint
To have to make each line end with a rhyme"
And so we turned our backs on the device
Of rhyming couplets, feeling that we could
Express ourselves more clearly in blank verse
Neatly parcelled up in rhythmic form.
We found that musicality enough
Remained in everything we wrote and said
Until the day when, tired of such sport
We snapped out of it, returning to more natural patterns of speech.

---

This wasn’t my first attempt at the form. That came on Thursday March 17th 2016. I know that, because it was the day upon which the popular television magician, Paul Daniels, died. I had just decided that I was going to take my interest in poetry a little further. I had been reading of the exploits of the Mexborough Read to Write poetry group on Facebook, and as their meetings were moving from lunchtime sessions (which I was unable to attend) to evening sessions (which I was able to attend). In order to give myself a bit of a grounding before I joined up, I had bought a book by Stephen Fry “The Ode Less Travelled”.

Fry dealt with Iambic Pentameter in an early chapter. As he explains each poetic form, he suggests that you have a crack at creating an example of your own. So, I got myself a pencil and paper and looked for some inspiration online. The death of Daniels had just been reported on the BBC News website. Perfect! Half an hour later I had produced a piece of poetry that I was sufficiently proud of to immediately send it to the BBC. I never heard back from them. Were they wrong to give my tribute the cold shoulder? Read it and judge for yourself.

Paul Daniels

So now our friend Paul Daniels is no more
His prestidigitation thrilled us all
He’ll not be doing any more, I fear
He’ll not be conjuring any more at all

We’ll thrill no more to his skilled artistry.
Never again say “Blimey, Fancy that!”
By sleight of hand he’ll no longer produce
Kerchief from sleeve or rabbit from top hat
 
His sword shall no more pierce cabinet
Avoiding busty blondes concealed within
Forgotten in his tool shed, His old saw
Will not bisect a leggy lass agin

And yet perhaps in some Elysian field
He may still go on practicing his skill
His spirit separated from his flesh
Could yet continue to obey his will
 
He’ll bamboozle and he’ll misdirect the minds
Of souls already passed on to that spot
The grateful dead will laugh to see such sport
They’ll like it. Yes, they will - but not a lot.

---

There is something that delights me about the incongruity of the poetic form and the subject matter in a piece like that. I prefer to think that the subject is elevated rather than the form diminished. But however it works, I like it. A lot.

A more recent foray into such poetry came during the run up to the 2022-23 football season, when Hull City, the team that I have followed since my dad took me to a match back in the early seventies, were making moves in the transfer market. One or two players had been bought from Turkey, the country where the club’s new owner, Acun Illicali hailed from. One of these players, Dogukan Sinik, had taken to social media to deliver a heartfelt message to his old friends and team mates saying how he would miss them once he had moved to the malodorous English county of East Yorkshire. It was a touching little piece, but not very poetic.

At the same time, Keane Lewis Potter, a vibrant, pacy and youthful Hull-born winger, who had scored a dozen league goals for the tigers in the previous season, was leaving the club for the opportunity to play premiership football at Brentford.

Leaving the club that he had been a part of since boyhood must have been a wrench for Potter. Of course, it would give him financial stability, probably for life, but he was leaving his home town and friends who he had played with for a long time, enjoying many successes along the way.

I imagined that he would have similar feelings to Sinik, but if so, he wasn’t posting them as publicly as the Turkish man. I could not resist putting a few words into his mouth. I took to the social media myself, suggesting that he had composed a sonnet - in iambic pentameter no less - to those he was leaving behind.

Perhaps no one was fooled. But it certainly caused a bit of a ripple amongst the Brentford supporting twitter community. Just so you know, Brentford FC’s nickname is “the bees”.

The Potter Sonnet

My heavy heart I wear upon my sleeve
And turn to face uncomfortable truth 
The day hath come when I must take my leave
Of lads with whom I sported in my youth
The North has been my home since infancy
And Yorkshire hath been all I have desired
But now the South calls siren-like to me
My time in Northern regions hath expired
The Humber bank on which I learned my trade
Is now too small a stage for my ascent
I sense my fame and fortune shall be made
At where the ford doth cross the River Brent
Pray friends, please don’t think any ill of he
Who’s no longer a tiger but a bee

So far, neither Keane Lewis Potter nor Dogukan Sinik has been quite as successful at their respective new clubs as might have been hoped. But there is still time yet!