1. Rhythm refers to the pattern of sounds in speech or writing, created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables. A poem may have rhymed or unrhymed lines; it may be composed in strict metrical form or in free verse; but it always has rhythm.

2. The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is called meter
The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is called meter. Meter is measured by feet.
A foot is a group of syllables usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or more unaccented syllables.
Lines of poetry can be scanned- divided into feet- by indicating the stressed and unstressed syllables. – Scansion.

3. iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic
The arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables in a foot results in four basic meters:
iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic
Iamb – an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable ˘ ΄
And all / should cry, / Beware! / Beware!
His flash- / ing eyes, / his float- /
ing hair!

4. Trochee – an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable ΄ ˘
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Anapest – two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable
˘ ˘ ΄
Like a child from the womb, like a
ghost from the tomb

5. Dactyl – one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables
΄ ˘ ˘
Loosing his arms from her waist he flew upward, awaiting the sea beast.

6. Poetry varies not only in meter, but in the number of feet in a line
Poetry varies not only in meter, but in the number of feet in a line. The following terms represent the number of feet in a line of poetry.
1 foot - monometer
2 feet - dimeter
3 feet - trimeter
4 feet - tetrameter
5 feet - pentameter
6 feet - hexameter

7. unstressed feet per line
7 feet - heptameter
8 feet - octameter
Most common – pentameter, tetrameter, and trimeter.
Scansions
Iambic pentameter - five unstressed/
stressed feet per line
Trochaic tetrameter – four stressed/
unstressed feet per line

8. Blank verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter
Blank verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter. (Shakespeare wrote his plays in blank verse)

9. Rhyme – the repetition of sounds at the ends of words.
End rhyme – rhyming words at the ends of lines.
Internal rhyme – rhyming words within lines.
Rhyme Scheme – a regular pattern of rhyming words at the end of a line in a poem. It is indicated by using lowercase letters. Each rhyme is assigned a different letter.
The way a crow a
Shook down on me b
The dust of snow a
From a hemlock tree b