While some of the material presented here is duplicated elsewhere on this site, it was felt that grouping this material here would provide a convenient and logical central source for this material.

Throughout this work, the following conventions will be used: Accented Syllable   ( ' ); Unaccented Syllable ( - ); Caesura or Rest ( || ); End of Line ( / ); End of Stanza ( // ).

The Basic Structure of the Poem

Accentual - Syllabic Meter - This is the standard method of defining and describing the rhythmic patterns in a line and/or work of poetry. It is based on both the total syllable count and the number of accented, or stressed, syllables in that line. The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is referred to as a "foot"; the number of "feet" in the line define the "meter".

One foot = monometer
Two feet = dimeter
Threefeet = trimeter
Four feet = tetrameter
Five feet = pentameter
Six feet = hexameter
Seven feet = heptameter
Eight feet = octameter

Longer lines are possible, but tend to take on the nature of prose, as any economy of image is lost.

Meter based on the Iambic and Trochaic foot is referred to as "duple meter", as it contains two syllables. Meters based on the Anapestic and the Dactylic foot are referred to as "triple meter". The Pyrrhic and Spondaic foot are used as substitute feet, used to vary the basic meter, avoiding a mechanical, "sing-song" effect. Lines of any significant length are not possible using only the Pyrrhic or Spondaic foot.

Staandard nomenclature is to define the basic foot used in a line, followed by its metric length. Thus, "Iambic Pentameter" defines a line, written primarily in the Iambic foot, 5 feet in length. Since the Iambic is a duple meter, we thus have a total syllable count of 10 for the line in question.
In practice, replacing the initial Iambic foot with a monosyllabic foot, for a total syllable count of 9; the addition of a feminine ended word for a count of 11; or a true 10 syllable pentameter line, would be acceptable within a poem written and defined as Iambic Pentameter.

Please note that the line length is dependent on both the syllable count of the foot and the number of feet in the line. Thus, Dactylic Trimeter (3 syllables of 3 feet each) would have a total syllable count of 9.

Interesting Sidenote: In an essay by Frederick Turner and Ernst Pöppel, "The Neural Lyre: Poetic Meter, the Brain, and Time", the authors discuss the ability of the human ear to process, intelligibly, three seconds worth of information before requiring a pause. They observe that in many different languages, a line of well constructed verse requires approximately three seconds to speak.