Poetic Form
Patterns of Rhythm
Foot
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A foot is the metrical unit by which a line of poetry is measured.
A foot usually consists of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables.
A vertical line is used to separate the feet: “The clock struck one” consists of two feet.
A foot of poetry can be arranged in a variety of patterns; here are five of the chief ones:
Away
Lovely
Understand
Desperate
Deadest
Line
 A line is measured by the number of feet it contains
 Common line length names are:
o Monometer: one foot
o Dimeter: two feet
o Trimester: three feet
o Tetrameter: four feet
o Pentameter: five feet
o Hexameter: six feet
o Heptameter: seven feet
o Octameter: eight feet
 By combining the name of a line length with the name of a foot, we can describe the metrical qualities
of a line concisely.
 Consider, for example, the pattern of feet and length of this line:
o
I didn’t want the boy to take the dog.
 The iambic rhythm of this line falls into five feet; hence it is called iambic pentameter.
Let’s take a look at an example. Read the following line and see if you can hear the stressed syllables.
1. My mother ate an apple and my father ate a pear.
2. So long as men can breathe and eyes can see.
Poetic Forms: Limerick, Haiku & Free Verse
Limerick
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Always light and humorous
Five lines rhyming aabba
Lines 1,2 and 5 contain 3 feet
Lines 3 and 4 contain two feet
There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was far faster than light,
She set out one day,
In a relative way,
And returned home the previous night.
Haiku
 Borrowed from the Japanese
 Usually consists of seventeen syllables organized into three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five
syllables.
 These poems typically present an intense emotion or vivid image of nature.
Trees, they are so high
Like towers in the sky
Forever they stand
Free Verse
 Do not have a fixed or predominate meter; often do not rhyme
 Derive their rhythmic qualities from the repetition of words, phrases, or grammatical structures; the
arrangement of words on the printed page.
Nothing's changed except me and the facts
And the sadness I didn't mean to start.
But it feels different now you've said
It's wrong, and I still can't see your point.
And I think as water runs over my hands that
That's really all there is or can be.
The gold is wearing off the infamous ring
And something wears away from around my heart