Free Verse

"The Reverse Side" is written in "free verse," which may be simply defined as poetry without a regular pattern of rhyme or meter. In many languages when words are arranged in sentences, some words or syllables (parts of words) are stressed more than others. For instance, in the English word "before," the second syllable is emphasized more than the first. "Meter" in poetry is the organization of stressed and unstressed syllables into regular patterns. In casual speech people do not make an effort to organize stressed and unstressed syllables into patterns, but for much of history, poetry was expected to have an arrangement of a certain number of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line of the poem. The rhyming of certain words in poetry—a regular arrangement of words that sound alike—is a poetic device completely separate from meter, but rhyme and meter went hand...