1. Reading Poetry Poetry is a compressed form of diction that expresses an idea in a harmonious and very compact way. the basic unit is the poetic line. the poetic line is uniquely conscious of rhythm and, sometimes, rhyme.

2. Meter The word “meter” comes from the Greek word for measure. A poem has meter if its rhythm is structured into a recurrence of regular (that is, approximately equal) units.

3. Rhyme Rhyme refers to the sound of the last stressed vowel of each line. Poetry can rhyme or not. If a poem uses rhyme, you can identify the rhymes and come up with a rhyming pattern: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The rhyme scheme here is abab. Notice each group of rhymes forms a stanza, which is demarcated both by its rhythmic and rhyming structure. This poem, Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins,” is divided into quatrains: that is, four lines of rhymed or unrhymed poetry.

4. Scansion Every sentence has a natural series of stressed and unstressed syllables. Most people pay little or no attention to the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables in their speaking and writing, but to a poet there is no more important element of a poem. When we figure out where the stressed and unstressed syllables of a poetic line are found, we call it “scansion”: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may Old time is still a-flying

5. Two Common Metrical Lines Iambic: an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable. This is considered the meter closest to that of ordinary speech. Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. Trochaic: a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable. London bridge is falling down.