the iambic part of this refers to an "unstressed, stressed" read in a poem.
For example, from a poem by Emily Dickinson, read this aloud:
Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me.
You will notice when you read that there are certain parts of each word or line that you put stress on [you may raise your tone of voice slightly while reading it]. Below, the emphasized portions are bolded:
Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me.
This style, the 'unstressed, stressed' style, is called Iambic.
The pentameter means that there are four 'feet' of this form per line...aka, how many times the 'unstressed, stressed' pattern is repeated in one single line. So we seperate the lines like this [seperated by hyphens]:
Because -- I could -- not stop -- for death he kind -- ly stopped -- for me.
The first line of this, my dear...is Iambic Pentameter. [This poem is technically known as "Iambic Pentameter with alternating Trimeter...but that's another story].
I hope this helped, let me know if you need anything else!!
I had to do a poem last year in iambic pentameter. Mine was really bad, but I'm glad you got yours all figured out! I'm just not cut out to be a poet. XD
Got YWS?
"Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed."
- Dale Carnegie
Uh, Lisa, the whole reason we have elected officials is so we don't have to think all the time. Just like that rainforest scare a few years back: our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn't they? — Homer Simpson
