Accentual Verse

[milo]

Well, I know you're a fan of meter, so you are saying accentual verse is stress count only, not necessarily regular?

Nope, no plans to sing it, even with a bongo to drown me out.

Accentual verse is stress count /per line/ but modern reading has demoted the line break pause to near insignificance. If you were to make an audio of accentual verse I would be hard pressed to recognize it as other than free verse while metric verse (though also demoted in modern reading) would be obvious.

Now, if you are insistent on using archaic, clownish poetic devices, you may as well pack some alliterstion in.

Now, don't be making fun of my alliteration. It comes out that way and some of it is quite nice sounding. Feel free to point out anything specifically awful, but I won't chuck a line that I like the sound of to eliminate it. If it's not in style I don't mind being the odd man out.

Actually I was making a joke http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_verse

I was alluding to A-S alliterative verse, the last effective use of accentual verse but, yah, I consider alliteration to be the most misused and abused sonic device in poetry which seems to produce endless streams of "nice alliteration" when in actuality "thank god, a poetic device I recognise" is what they mean. Its uses and effects are misunderstood and is almost always best avoided by all but the most advanced writers if possible but that's a discussion for another day.