In English, the difficulty of perceiving even brief isosyllabic lines as rhythmically equivalent is aggravated by the inordinate power of stressed syllables…
The mashup of mystification about versifying that’s available online furnishes what I call Prosodic Moments — when phraseology leaps to quasi-epic status along the lines of milk’s vault to the empyrean of cheese.
… In English… [“syllabic technique”] is a compositional device: primarily of importance to the author, perhaps noticed by the alert reader, and imperceptible to the hearer.
(“Syllabic verse,” Wikipedia)
Cadence in Free verse came to mean whatever the writer liked, some claiming verse and poetry had it, but prose did not, but for some it was synonymous with Free verse, where each poet has to find the cadence within himself.
(“Cadence (poetry),” Wikipedia)
The term strophe is used in modern and post-modern criticism, to indicate “long non-isomorphic units”… This appropriation of the ancient term is useful, as contemporary poetry… avoids relying upon the invention of new terminology such as ‘word clumps’.
(“Strophe,” Wikipedia)
And so we shoot the gap between the Scylla of isosyllabism and the Charybdis of isomorphism in the quest to feel how modern verse breaks free of prose by other than a powdered nose.
(c) 2020 JMN
Finicky Finger-Wag
Until then, many are relishing in his struggles and those of his team: The Astros, who reached the World Series last season, were 12-10 and battling for second place in the American League West just over a third of the way through the season.
Let’s make that either “relishing his struggles” or “reveling in his struggles.” These two semi-rhyming verbs are not switch hitters.
(David Waldstein, “Even in a Pandemic, Everyone Still Hates the Astros,” NYTimes, 8-18-20)
(c) 2020 JMN