what is rhythm in poetry?
Same as it is in music! “Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light….” Can you hear the waltz?
“oh, SAY can you SEE by the DAWN’S ear-ly LIGHT….”
Meter describes the rhythmic pattern of a poem — its beat — and has two elements: (1) the pattern of the beat (“FOOT”), and (2) how many times that pattern repeats in a line (“METER”).
Let’s take the lines:
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water
Say it in your head and tap on the strong beats. It’ll be:
BY the SHORES of GITche GUmee,
BY the SHIning BIG-sea-WAter
You can *feel* the meter, right? There’s a strong beat on the odd-numbered syllables:
ONE two THREE four FIVE six SEVEN eight
The smallest rhythmic unit is called a FOOT. In this poem, a foot consists of 2 syllables, the first of which is accented, the second is not.
Instead of saying “accented” or “strong,” in poetry, it’s called “stressed.” The unaccented or weak beats are unstressed.”
Okay so far?
How many FEET are in one line? Not syllables, but feet? You count them by the number of STRESSED syllables in one line. So it’s 4.
“BY the SHORES of GITche GUmee”
BY = 1st, SHORES = 2nd, GIT = 3rd, GU = 4th
So there are 4 feet in this meter; each foot is repeated 4 times in each line, so the meter has 4 feet.
And that’s it! Now you just need to know the terminology.
Since poetry is an art, they have to use a fancy-sounding foreign language to make it sound impressive and artsy 
The name for this foot (“STRONG weak”) is a TROCHEE [pronounced TROH-kee]. The meter is said to be TROCHAIC. (pronounced troh-KAY-ik)
Now what we need to know about meter is HOW MANY FEET are in each line. We already know it’s 4. So, using the ancient Greek (told ya!) word for “four,” they came up with the word TETRAMETER.
The meter is called TROCHAIC TETRAMETER:
“trochaic” because the foot (rhythmic patter) is “STRONG weak”;
“tetrameter” because there are 4 feet in each line.
TA-DAAA!
Ready to learn another real quick? New line:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
Where are the stressed (strong) beats?
shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer’s DAY?
one TWO three FOUR five SIX seven EIGHT nine TEN
How many syllables are in each foot (rhythmic unit)? Two. Which syllable is stressed? The second. (The first is unstressed.)
This type of foot (weak STRONG) is called an IAMB. The adjective is IAMBIC. [pron: eye-AM-bic]
How many iambs [EYE-ambz] are in each line? 5, right? Going back to ancient Greek, this is called PENTAMETER: 5 stressed beats (5 feet) in a line.
The meter is IAMBIC PENTAMETER.
[eye-AM-bik pen-TA-mi-ter -- the 'a' in "TA" is like the 'a' in 'cat.']
There are other types of feet, and a line can have any number of feet. But if you understand this, it’s just a matter of learning the terminology.
R.A.P. is RHYTHM AND POETRY
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