Read a line of poetry out loud and listen for the syllabic rhythm of the words. A stressed accent is noted with the symbol "/" and an unstressed is defined with a "U" mark. For example, in Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," the first four lines alternate with pairs of unstressed and stressed accents, which are written as: U, /, U, /, U, /, U, /:
Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
Identify sets of meter in the poem. In English poetry, meters include iambs, trochees, spondees, anapests and dactyls. An iamb contains an unstressed accent followed by a stressed accent, while a trochee is the reverse. A dactyl has one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables, and an anapest is the reverse. A spondee contains two stressed accents in a row.
Iamb: That time (U, /) of year (U, /) thou mayst (U, /) in me (U, /) behold (U, /)
Trochaic: Tell me (/, U) not in (/, U) mournful (/, U) numbers (/, U)
Dactylic: This is the (/, U, U ) forest prime- (/, U, U ) evil the (/, U, U ) murmuring (/, U, U )
Anapest: And the sound (U, U, /) of a voice (U, U, /) that is still (U, U, /)
Spondaic: Break, break, break (/,/)
Count the number of syllables in each line. A poem with 2 syllables is a monometer, while poems with 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 syllables are known as dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter and octameter, respectively.
Combine the number of syllables with the type of meter used. For example, if the poem uses 4 iambs with 8 syllables, the poem is iambic tetrameter, while 5 trochees with 10 syllables is trochaic pentameter.