analyzing interesting rhythms in poetry

[milo]

hello,

i'm unsure how to do this - i kindaa think i can, but when i do i get carried away with my own poems. here's part of a review i tried to write for the 2013 collection by simmons - drysalter.

“All-seeing-I saw ocular blood clots,
sun blemished skin and a broken heart.
Now wait while I spit out your mugshots.”

The automated insult and the poet's attitude to his "broken heart" do not jar, and so I am not convinced that he can use it can be the focal point of the poem. I am left wondering if I should read his heartbreak as melodramatic due to the TECHNICAL TERM of “blood”, or as unconvincing cynicism due to the TECHNICAL TERM of “and a broken”. It would be a rushed to claim that Simmons is able to harmonize such disparate elements through his imagination and clever use of expectation.

maybe you won't make sense of what i'm asking til i found the technical terms ha......... the first term i just mean: when we expect a unstressed syllable and get a stressed. the second term is when: we expect a stressed syllable and get an unstressed (and).

i read it as

All-seeing-I saw ocular blood clots,
sun blemished skin and a broken heart.
Now wait while I spit out your mugshots.

thanks for any help!

I am flummoxed. Just what exactly are you trying to do? Trying to scan free verse? The technical term for getting the wrong stress/unstressed syllable, or else the wrong foot altogether is usually "botched meter", or in some more colorful countries they may call it "bullocks", unless there is a reason for it and it is used reasonably--as for free verse, though, there are no expectations--there is no technical term for "expecting" one level of stress and getting another.

actually, I think he is referring to attempting to rhyme masculine with feminine.

The mistake occurs in his scansion - it is BLOODclots rhyming with MUGshots so it is fine.