Glossary of Poetic Terms

A line of verse composed of two feet. “Some go local / Some go express / Some can’t wait / To answer Yes,” writes Muriel Rukeyser in her poem “Yes,” in which the dimeter line predominates. Kay Ryan’s “Blandeur” contains this series of mostly dimeter lines:

               Even out Earth’s
               rondure, flatten
               Eiger, blanden
               the Grand Canyon.
               Make valleys
               slightly higher,
               widen fissures
               to arable land,
               remand your
               terrible glaciers