What the scansion tool shows
The Workshop is a free scansion tool and writing desk for poets. You write or paste your own poem, and it shows you what is already there: where the stresses fall, which meter each line leans toward, where the rhymes are, and which sounds come back. It never rewrites a word. Every change stays yours.
The Sound X-ray is the part most poets open first. It reads every word against a pronouncing dictionary and marks each syllable above the line:
- / marks a stressed syllable, in red.
- ˘ marks an unstressed syllable, including short words like the, of and and.
- · marks a one-syllable word that can take a stress or drop it, depending on how you read the line.
Under each line, the X-ray names the meter the line fits best, such as iambic pentameter or trochaic tetrameter, or says free when no regular pattern fits. A wavy underline marks a word whose stress fights that meter. In the margin you get the line's syllable count and a rhyme letter, so an ABAB pattern is plain at a glance. A small prime after the letter (A′) means a slant rhyme rather than a full one.
It works as a poetry meter checker and an iambic pentameter checker in one, and it updates as you type. Above the poem, a short summary tells you the poem's main meter and its most common line length.
Sound echoes
Poems repeat sounds on purpose, and sometimes by accident. The X-ray groups words close together that share a sound: alliteration (the same first consonant), assonance (the same stressed vowel) and internal rhyme. Tap an echo and its words light up in the poem, so you can see where the music of a stanza comes from, or where one sound has taken over.
How to use the workshop
- Write or paste your poem in the box on the left. Leave a blank line between stanzas, because the tools read stanza breaks as part of the poem.
- Open a tool from the row on the right: Sound X-ray, Word finder, Readers, Echo check or Examples. The X-ray needs no button; it follows your typing.
- Keep your work. Without an account, your text stays in this browser. With a free account, you can save drafts and open them on any device, and two more tools open: the Boneyard and Your voice.
The first time you visit, the box holds a public-domain poem by Emily Dickinson so you can see every tool working before you type. Clear it whenever you're ready.
A scansion example: Dickinson's "Hope"
Here is the first stanza of Emily Dickinson's poem, first published in 1891:
"Hope" is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -
The Sound X-ray counts 7, 6, 8 and 6 syllables and reads all four lines as iambic, the da-DUM beat of English hymns. It marks soul and all with the same letter and a prime: a slant rhyme. They share the final l sound but not the vowel. That is a Dickinson habit, and the tool makes it visible instead of calling it a mistake.
This is what scansion is for. Hearing stressed and unstressed syllables, line by line, shows you why a poem moves the way it does. Once you can see the pattern in a poem you admire, you can hear it in your own draft.
Find the right word
Every poet knows the gap: a line needs one word, and it has to mean the right thing, have the right number of syllables, land its stress in the right place and rhyme with a word three lines up. Most rhyme finders only sort by sound. The Word finder takes all of it at once:
- Means something like: a word or phrase for the sense you want, such as leaving, but gently.
- Rhymes with: the word to rhyme with. The last word of the line above your cursor is offered with one tap. Leave Slant rhymes too on for near rhymes.
- Syllables and stress: pick a syllable count, then tap each syllable to mark it DUM (stressed) or da.
Ask for a two-syllable word stressed DUM-da that means leaving and rhymes with river, and you get words like sever, shiver and quiver. Every word is checked against the pronouncing dictionary before it is shown, so the count and stress you asked for are the ones you get. Tap a word to copy it.
Without an account you get 20 searches a day; with one, there is no daily limit. If you want comparisons rather than single words, the Metaphor Generator and Alliteration Generator are built for that.
Five readers, no rewrites
Poetry feedback usually comes back as suggestions. This tool gives you readings instead. Five simulated readers read your poem on their own: a magazine editor who notices every ambiguity, someone who rarely reads poetry, a literature student looking for symbols, a reader from another culture for whom idioms land differently, and a quick reader on a phone.
Each reader says in a sentence or two what they think the poem is about, and which lines confused them. Lines where the readers clearly took the poem in different ways are marked as splits, with each reading listed beside the line. Nothing is rewritten. A split isn't always a problem, since some ambiguity is the point, but now you know where it is and can decide.
You get one reading a day without an account and five with one. With an account, readings of a saved draft are kept, so after a revision the tool tells you whether the number of splits went down.
The echo check
The echo check looks for phrases worn smooth by use: broken heart, beneath the stars, tears like rain. Each one is marked in your poem, so you can decide whether it is earning its place or standing in for something you haven't found yet. Phrases that turn up in a great many poems in our library are flagged too.
With an account, you can also compare every line with poems already in print. A line you half-remember can slip into a draft without your noticing. When one of your lines sits close to a public-domain line, you see the line and the poet; when it sits close to a poem we can't quote, it is reported without the text. Accounts get three of these checks a day.
Examples, the boneyard and your voice
Examples shows real poems in a form, from the public domain or with permission, each with notes measured by the same engine: the rhyme scheme, syllables per line and the meter most lines follow. Seeing how a master bent a form's rules is often the quickest way to learn it. The Sonnet Generator and Haiku Generator pages show examples under their forms when the library has them.
Two tools need a free account, because they remember your work:
- The Boneyard keeps every line you cut, from saved drafts and from generated poems you edit. When your cursor sits on a line, cut lines that fit it by syllables and rhyme come to the top. Many poets keep a scrap file of lines; this one sorts itself.
- Your voice learns how you write from 10 to 30 of your own poems: your line length, the words you use, the images you return to, how you end a poem. Then it can tell you when a draft drifts away from your usual habits. You can also ask the poem generator to write in your voice, from its Advanced options.
We never use your drafts to train AI.
Tips for reading meter
- Read the line aloud first. The tool shows the dictionary's stresses; your voice decides. If a mark looks wrong, say the line the way you mean it and trust that.
- Watch the one-syllable words. Words like night or lamp can carry a beat or give it up. The dot (·) marks them so you remember they can go either way.
- Treat a wavy line as a question, not an error. Poets break the meter on purpose to stress a word. The underline just shows you where the break is.
- Check words the dictionary doesn't know. Names and invented words are counted by their spelling and shown in italics. Some words also have two pronunciations: fire can be one syllable or two.
- Use scansion on poems you love. Paste a public-domain poem and look at its pattern before you revise your own.
For a quick check of a finished poem's syllables, rhyme scheme and form, the Poem Checker gives a one-page report. More tools for revising are in Poem Editing Tools.