1. The Sounds of Poetry Rhythm in Poetry Meter Free Verse Rhyme
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Rhythm in Poetry
Meter
Free Verse
Rhyme
Alliteration and Onomatopoeia
Practice

2. Rhythm in Poetry
Like music, poetry is based on rhythm—the alternation of stressed and unstressed sounds that makes the voice rise and fall.

3. Rhythm in Poetry Poetic rhythm can take the form of
meter a strict rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line
free verse a loose kind of rhythm that sounds like natural speech
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4. Meter
In metrical poetry, stressed and unstressed syllables are arranged in a regular pattern.
Listen to this excerpt. Which syllables are stressed in each line?
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes,
From the keen ice shielding our linkèd sleep.
from “Prometheus Unbound” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
˘ ˘ ’ ’ ’ ˘ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
’ = stressed syllable ˘ = unstressed syllable

5. Meter
Marking the stressed (′) and unstressed (˘) syllables of each line is called scanning a poem.
˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes,
From the keen ice shielding our linkèd sleep.
from “Prometheus Unbound” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
˘ ˘ ’ ’ ’ ˘ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
Varying the meter

6. Meter
Metrical poetry is made up of metrical units called feet. A foot consists of at least one stressed syllable and usually one or more unstressed syllables.
Five Metrical Feet
Single-Word Examples
iamb
insist
trochee
double
anapest
understand
dactyl
excellent
spondee
football
˘ ’
’ ˘
˘ ˘ ’
’ ˘ ˘
’ ’

7. Meter
Quick Check
Identify the dominant metrical foot in these lines: iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl, or spondee.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
from “A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I am monarch of all I survey;
from “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk” by W. Cowper
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
from “Sonnet 55” by William Shakespeare
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8. Meter
Identify the dominant metrical foot in these lines: iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl, or spondee.
Quick Check
’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
from “A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
trochee
I am monarch of all I survey;
from “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk” by W. Cowper
˘ ˘ ’ ˘ ˘ ’ ˘ ˘ ’
anapest
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
from “Sonnet 55” by William Shakespeare
˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
iamb

9. Free Verse
Free verse is poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme.
Never, in all your career of worrying, did you imagine
what worries could occur concerning the flying cat.
You are traveling to a distant city.
The cat must travel in a small box with holes.
—from “The Flying Cat” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Because it is “free” of metric rules, free verse sounds more like prose or everyday speech than formal poetry.
The Imagists
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10. Rhyme
Rhyme is the repetition of the accented vowel sound and all subsequent sounds in a word.
Listen to this excerpt. What words rhyme?
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
from “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” by William Wordsworth

11. Rhyme The chiming sounds of rhyme punctuate the poem’s rhythm
give the poem structure
make the poem easier to remember

12. Rhyme End rhyme is rhyme that occurs at the ends of lines.
This knowledge, from an Angel's voice
Proceeding, made the heart rejoice
—from “The Pilgrim’s Dream” by William Wordsworth
Internal rhyme is rhyme within a line.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
—from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

13. Rhyme Rhymes may be exact or approximate.
In an exact rhyme, the words rhyme perfectly.
In an approximate rhyme, the sounds are similar but not exactly the same.
heart—start
flicker—thicker
ordering—bordering
light—late
whisper—winter
bays—waves

14. Rhyme Quick Check All suddenly the wind comes soft,
And Spring is here again;
And the hawthorn quickens with buds of green,  
And my heart with buds of pain.
My heart all Winter lay so numb
The earth so dead and frore
That I never thought the Spring would come
Or my heart wake any more.
—from “Song” by Rupert Brooke
Identify the exact and approximate end rhymes in these stanzas.
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15. Rhyme Quick Check All suddenly the wind comes soft,
And Spring is here again;
And the hawthorn quickens with buds of green,  
And my heart with buds of pain.
My heart all Winter lay so numb
The earth so dead and frore
That I never thought the Spring would come
Or my heart wake any more.
—from “Song” by Rupert Brooke
Identify the exact and approximate end rhymes in these stanzas.
exact rhymes: numb/come
frore/more
approximate rhymes:
again/green/pain

16. Alliteration and Onomatopoeia
Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in words that appear close together.
Listen to this excerpt. What consonant sound is repeated?
A long, long yellow on the lawn,
A hubbub as of feet;
Not audible, as ours to us,
But dapperer, more sweet;
from “A long, long yellow on the lawn” by Emily Dickinson
More about alliteration

17. Alliteration and Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the use of words that sound like what they mean.
Listen to this excerpt. What word is an example of onomatopoeia?
Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed
from “Prairie” by Carl Sandburg

18. Alliteration and Onomatopoeia
Quick Check
In this excerpt, find at least two examples of alliteration and onomatopoeia.
I shall come near your window, where you look out when your eyes open in the morning,
And there I shall slam together bird-houses and bird-baths for wing-loose wrens and hummers to live in, birds with yellow wing tips to blur and buzz soft all summer,
from “Broken-face Gargoyles” by Carl Sandburg
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19. Alliteration and Onomatopoeia
In this excerpt, find at least two examples of alliteration and onomatopoeia.
Quick Check
Alliteration
Onomatopoeia
I shall come near your window, where you look out when your eyes open in the morning,
And there I shall slam together bird-houses and bird-baths for wing-loose wrens and hummers to live in, birds with yellow wing tips to blur and buzz soft all summer,
from “Broken-face Gargoyles” by Carl Sandburg

20. Practice
As in ancient days, when poetry was not written but only spoken or sung, poetry today is addressed to the ear. You can’t really say that you know a poem until you’ve heard it read aloud.
Choose one of the poems you’ve read in this chapter (or any favorite poem), and read it aloud to yourself and then to a partner or a small group.
Then, write a paragraph or two discussing the poem’s rhythm, rhyme, or other sound effects.
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21. The End

22. Rhyme
Approximate rhymes are also called half rhymes, slant rhymes, or imperfect rhymes.

23. Meter Varying the meter occasionally helps to
keep the meter from sounding monotonous
draw attention to key words in the poem
What words are emphasized in the last line?
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes,
From the keen ice shielding our linkèd sleep.
from “Prometheus Unbound” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
˘ ˘ ’ ’ ’ ˘ ˘ ’ ˘ ’
keen, ice, shielding, sleep

24. Free Verse The Imagists
Free verse began with the imagists, some early twentieth-century American and English poets who decided to free poetry from the old metric rules and focus on imagery alone.
Ezra Pound

25. More Sound Effects More About Alliteration
Strictly speaking, alliteration occurs at the beginnings of words or on accented syllables. However, it would not be wrong to identify the l's in the word "yellow" as examples of alliteration.
A long, long yellow on the lawn,
A hubbub as of feet;
Not audible, as ours to us,
But dapperer, more sweet;
from “A long, long yellow on the lawn” by Emily Dickinson