Dispondee Foot

The Dispondee is a tetrasyllabic metrical foot used in metered poetry. In classical poetry of the Greeks and Romans the Dispondee consists of four long syllables. In English poetry it consists of four stressed syllables as shown in the Table below.

Don’t expect to find poems made up of the Dispondee foot entirely. However, you are bound to see the Dispondee foot tramping along with other foot types in verses of poems. This is true with respect to the poem, “Ode to Black Pudding and Souse” written as an Irregular Ode in Pentameter with nine stanzas. The Dispondee is found in the following verses of the poem. Take a look.

Stanza 1, Verse 4

Rope leashed black-belly sheep and goats, to graze

Stanza 2, Verse 1 

Those cane-sucking youths watched Broomfield's sweet teeth

Stanza 3, Verse 1 

Once each month early a Saturday morn,

Stanza 4, Verse 13 

Spare ribs, ham, bacon served in posh housetops.

Stanza 5, Verse 7 

Pam Smith-Skeete cleaned ears, tails and sow's trotters;

Stanza 6, Verse 6

On hell's ground, pig wailed 'oink, oink damned tyrant';

Stanza 7, Verse 11 

Minds boggle, how folks clean well, heaps of gut;

Stanza 8, Verses 1, 2

For hours henceforth guts steep with salina;

While Marge grates sweet potatoes in tin bowl;

Stanza 8, Verses 3, 9

Adds thyme, sweet marjoram, Bajan sugar

Just like grand grand force-feeding her turkey;

Stanza 9, Verses 3, 4

Oinks, joints, blood, tears of ingenuity

Have made unwanted pig parts, real soul-dish