SOL 10.5a, c Rhyme, Rhythm, Meter
Rhyme is the repetition of sounds at the ends of words. Poems which use rhyme will always have a rhyme
scheme, which is the pattern in which the rhymes occur. Rhyme schemes are labeled using letters, and each
letter represents a different rhyme sound. For instance:
Weird-Bird by Shel Silverstein
Birds are flyin' south for winter.
Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north,
Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin',
Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth.
He says, "It's not that I like ice
Or freezin' winds and snowy ground.
It's just sometimes it's kind of nice
To be the only bird in town."
(A)
(B)
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(C)
(D)
This poem has a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD.
Rhythm is the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables into a pattern. You can think of rhythm as
being the “beat” of a poem. Meter is what we call the specific number of stressed and unstressed syllables in a
line of poetry. The meter of a poem is found using scansion, which is a technique for finding stressed and
unstressed syllables.
Stressed: more emphasis put on the syllable when spoken
Unstressed: less emphasis put on the syllable when spoken
Scansion:
1. Read the poem, preferably out loud.
2. Divide the first line into syllables
3. Read the poem again, this time putting a slash (/) above every stressed syllable and a carat (^) above
every unstressed syllable.
4. Look at the marks you made to determine the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
5. Repeat for the rest of the lines in the poem.
Scansion looks like this…
^
/
It
was
^
/
And all
^
/
It
was
^
/
Put
out
^
not
^
the
^
not
^
their
/
^
/
^
/
death, for
I
stood up,
/
^
/
dead lie
down.
/
^
/
^
/
night, for
all
the
bells
/
^
/
tongues
for
noon.
--from “It was not death, for I stood up” by Emily Dickinson
…because when you read the poem out loud, it sounds like this:
It
WAS not
DEATH,
for
I
stood UP,
And ALL
the
DEAD lie
DOWN.
It
WAS not
NIGHT,
for
ALL
the
BELLS
Put
OUT their TONGUES
for
NOON.
Try scanning the lines below:
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee
--from “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
Each group of stressed and unstressed syllables is called a foot. There are several different kinds of poetic feet,
but the most common are the iamb, the trochee, the dactyl, and the anapest.
iamb: unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (^/)
trochee: stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (/^)
dactyl: stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (/^^)
anapest: two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable (^^/)
Rhythm is one element of poetry that gives poems a musical quality; that is, makes them sound similar to
songs.
A limerick is a funny, often crude poem that has a specific rhyme scheme and meter. For example:
^
^
/
^
^
/
^
^
/
As
a
student
in
high school,
I
aced
(A)
^
^ / ^
^
/
^
^
/
Each exam that
I
faced and was placed
(A)
^
^
/
^
^
/
At
the
top
of
the
class,
(B)
^
^
/
^
^ /
Which was nice but
alas,
(B)
^
^
/
^
^
/
^
^
/
While my
friends were
all chased,
I
was
chaste.
(A)
This limerick has a rhyme scheme of AABBA and the type of foot is the trochee. There are three feet in the
first, second, and fifth lines and two feet in the third and fourth lines. All limericks follow this pattern.
Though the student's intentions were good,
His attention still strayed where it would.
"Aw, teacher, I tried!"
"But your mind's not applied.
So: detention. Is that understood?"