Well, we had a solution that used the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary but also had a lot of unknown handling on top of it. Then we used a heavily modified version o

Well, we had a solution that used the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary but also had a lot of unknown handling on top of it. Then we used a heavily modified version of Levenshtein distance to measure distance from Shakespearean iambic pentameter, with weighted penalties for the various "common irregularities"...we consulted someone in the English dept. to set the weights reasonably. Our metricality algorithm gave Shakespeare's sonnets 0.85, some random Dickens 0.7, and the NYT 0.4 or so...so we think it worked reasonably well. Happy to send you the paper if you're interested in more depth than the above.