This week: Breaking Cadence: When Rhythm Rebels Edited by: Jayne  
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| Hello, I'm Jayne! Welcome to my poetic explorations. My goal with these newsletters is to take us on a journey through the forms, devices, and concepts that make poetry so powerful. Sometimes, a series of newsletters will interconnect, while other issues will stand alone. I strive to ensure they are informative but fun and do my best to spark your curiosity. Don’t forget to check out this issue's curated selection of poetry! |
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Yes, there is a cadence to free verse.
If you have listened to a compelling speaker or read a book you couldn’t put down, you may have chalked it up to pacing, content, or topic/plot. But there is a more subtle draw: there’s a rhythm to language, born of phrasing, punctuation, and pauses. The lines don’t drag you through the content, but instead, the they you bring on a journey of subtle ups and downs throughout each sentence, paragraph, and page.
These ups and downs of language have a musicality, and while some people have a natural ear for it, anyone can learn the notes. While many people associate poetic musicality with rhyming, it’s not always the case. It can sometimes be easier to find the lyrical rise and fall in rhyme or meter, free verse employs the same ebbs and flows in a less structured way. This rhythm and musical feel is called cadence.
It’s important to remember that free verse is not some chaotic improvisation of words on a page. I’m not saying it can’t look like chaotic improvisation. I’m saying the poets who excel at it understand the fundamental rules behind the language of free verse (and poetry in general) and make the deliberate decision to break them.
How Cadence Plays a Part in Free Verse
Cadence is the natural rhythm that comes from how words and phrases are arranged. Whereas meter is fixed and predictable, cadence in free verse relies on a flexible framework that emerges from:
 Phrasing: How sentences are constructed and where you choose to place pauses.
Line Breaks: How lines are broken up to create emphasis or pacing
Repetition: Patterns of sounds, words, phrases, or structures
For example, Walt Whitman uses long, rolling lines and short repetitive phrases to achieve an almost chant-like rhythm in "Song of Myself."
The Meaning in the Sound
Cadence isn’t just about sound. It can be a tool to influence how the reader interacts with your poem, and the emotional resonance it imparts.
A gentle cadence creates smooth, flowing lines and a sense of calm or introspection. This doesn’t mean the lines have to be long. William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow” gently drops each word and lulls the reader in quiet contemplation:
Similarly, his “This Is Just to Say” has a conversation tone designed to invite the reader to participate.
In contrast, dynamic cadence is abrupt, and varies the pacing. This can add tension and urgency. Importantly, it’s not completely disjointed, but may take on a percussive rhythm like in Gwendoly Brooks’ "We Real Cool."
What Does Breaking Cadence Mean, Exactly?
If cadence refers to the natural rhythm and flow of language, then breaking cadence means to disrupt the rhythm. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not about sloppiness, or laziness, or untrained writing skills. It’s a controlled chaos meant to jolt, disarm, unsettle or confront your readers with a dissonate tension that can impart a deeper meaning.
To disrupt rhythm, you’ll create purposeful irregularities in the pacing or sound of a poem:
Uneven Phrasing: Combining short, clipped phrases with longer, winding ones.
Abrupt Line Breaks: Cutting lines unexpectedly to jar the reader’s flow.
Interruptive Punctuation: Using dashes, ellipses, or mid-line periods to fragment thought.
Obsessive Repetition: Repeating words or phrases in a way that feels compulsive rather than musical.
Of course, you’ll also want to pick your themes wisely. Grief, anger, loss, discouragement, and similar themes lend themselves to the jarring nature of broken cadence..
Examples of Broken Cadence
The easiest way to see how broken cadence truly difference from regular (musical) cadence is to compare them side by side.
“The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot uses fragmented rhythms and abrupt shifts to mirror the disjointed modern world:
"HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME."
This feels very different from the Whitman repetition mentioned earlier:
"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
“Daddy” by Sylvia Plath has staccato repetition and abrupt punctuation reflecting rage and grief:
“You do not do, you do not do”
At first glance, it may not seem much different than the dynamic lines of Brooks’ "We Real Cool" – both are clipped and to the point. But if you compare them closely, there’s a big difference in how Brooks' sounds:
"We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight."
“Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” by Wallace Stevens' uneven line lengths and scattered imagery emphasize monotony and surrealness:
"None are green
Or purple with green rings
Or green with yellow rings
Or yellow with blue rings."
Now compare that to Williams’ "Red Wheelbarrow", which also deals with the mundane in a big way, but feels less pressured:
"so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain".
“America” by Allen Ginsberg has a breathless, stream-of-consciousness rhythm of “America” forces readers to move fast:
"I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?"
The reader doesn’t have the time to consider one line before the next is thrust in their face. It’s chaotic and unsettling, and the first time around you might end remembering little and wondering what just happened. That’s okay. Read it again. There’s method in the madness.
How to Practice Broken Cadence
Everyone has a cadence, it’s what makes you sound like you. So, start writing smoothly. Get your thoughts onto the page, and then examine where can deliberately disrupt the flow. Where can you clip a word, shorten a phrase, or shift the tone?
Next, experiment with line length. Can you create a shortened line for a staccato? If you mix the short lines with the longer lines, how well do they contrast? Is there a repetition of sound between the lines that keeps them musical? Can you clip that out by choosing different words?
Or do you want that want subtle repetition so that only certain lines create the disjointed tension that snaps the reader to attention? You can also choose to use repetition to unsettle your reader. It’s not always about the repetition itself. It’s about what you choose to repeat.
Then, focus on punctuation. You control the pacing and rhythm of your poetry, regardless of whether or not you’re breaking cadence. Here you’ll want to try periods, commas, em dashes, or even white space.
Finally, read your poem aloud. Trust me on this—what sounds good in your head doesn’t always translate to the page the first time around. You want the broken cadence to sound purposeful, as opposed to sounding like you don’t know what you’re doing or you didn’t really have a point to make. By carefully controlling the cadence of your poem, you can create a compelling and memorable message for your reader that is hard to forget.
Terminology Used in This Newsletter
Cadence: The natural rhythm and flow of language, influenced by phrasing, line breaks, and repetition.
Free Verse: Poetry without a fixed meter or rhyme scheme.
Line Breaks: Points where lines end, affecting pacing and emphasis.
Repetition: The intentional recurrence of words or phrases to create rhythm or emphasize ideas.
Phrasing: The way sentences and ideas are constructed to influence rhythm.
Interruptive Punctuation: Punctuation (e.g., dashes, ellipses) that disrupts the rhythm of a poem.
Free Verse: Poetry without a fixed meter or rhyme scheme.
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Poetry: January 29, 2025 Issue [#12959]
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