Writing Accentual Poetry

[SpoDaddy]

I'm taking a class in poetry composition and I need to write an accentual poem. The problem is that the count for each line needs to be exact and I'm having a hard time nailing it down. Anyone have any tips or maybe a program/website that lets you paste in lines and counts the accents/beats/stresses for you?

[Cowutopia]

um, I want to help you, but really all I can think to say is to just use your brain and a dictionary. I can ask other people around school I guess.

[jyoung]

There is no easy way out for something like this.

You just have to train yourself by doing lots of scansion and maybe getting a teacher or someone knowledgeable to help you out.

By chance, were you asked to write a sonnet? Those are actually pretty easy to learn.

[SpoDaddy]

I met with my professor and he showed me how to do the line scanning. I've been reading lines out loud and it's starting to get easier to pick out the stresses. Eventually we'll be writing sonnets but right now we're just following random accent/syllable/rhyme patterns. This week I have to write four 4-line stanzas with an accent pattern, a syllable pattern, and a rhyme pattern (that isn't couplets).

[Pineapple]

Anyone have any tips or maybe a program/website that lets you paste in lines and counts the accents/beats/stresses for you?

You're not seriously looking for a program to help you write poetry, are you?
No offense was meant by that, but if you're having a hard time with it, sit down with your prof and explain whats giving you trouble and ask how you might fix that problem. I'm sure he/she would be glad to help you out. And once your get the hang of it it really becomes natural and you'll have no problem with it.

Edit: I didn't read your second post, my bad.