Using "/" for long, "—" for short, and "|" for divisions between feet, I've reproduced Lewis Turco's pattern for alcaic stanzas:
/ | / — | / — | / — — | / — —
/ | / — | / — | / — — | / — —
/ | / — | / — | / — | / —
/ — — | / — — | / — | / —
Of course alcaics are quantitative ("long" and "short," right?), and English doesn't have quantity, so we imitate the pattern using stress and unstressed syllables. At least some of us have; I found it extremely difficult. So difficult that I went looking for some wiggle room, and in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics article on alcaics I found that some of the syllables were "anceps," the Latin word for either, meaning they could be either long or short and, for me, either stressed or unstressed. Here's the pattern with the anceps syllables represented by "~"
~ | / — | / ~ | / — — | / — ~
~ | / — | / ~ | / — — | / — ~
~ | / — | / ~ | / — | / ~
/ — — | / — — | / — | / ~
It was still really foreign to my practice, and I found I badly missed rhyming, but I managed to get out two stanzas:
Friendly Advice to the Poets
You know, the truth is nobody gives a damn
About your taste, your troubles, or what you think.
You're only artsy entertainers
Trolling for eyeballs and ears and money.
So entertain us. Show us that poetry
Can be as good as Buffy or Jamesons —
Well, maybe almost — Buffy's damned good —
Once you've seduced us we'll pay attention.
Have I said this was hard?
9:45:56 PM 
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