Reading the Rhythm

We are still a long way from knowing how to read the rhythms of free verse, a poetry which has been largely neglected by metrical theory. Clive Scott's readable and scholarly study indicates the strategies of reading needed if justice is to be done to free verse's rhythmic versatility. The core of Reading the Rhythm is an analysis of key French twentieth-century poets and poems, including Perse's Eloges; Cendrars's Prose du Transsiberien, Dix-neuf poemes elastiques, and Documentaires; Apollinaire's Calligrammes; Supervielle's Gravitations; and Reverdy's Sources du vent. Contemporary trends in the visual arts - Cubism, Futurism, Orphism, photography - are called upon as perceptual models to illuminate free verse, and a further perspective is added by the theme of travel and movement. This is an accomplished examination of the rhythms of free verse, and one that has implications for our reading of regular verse. It is also a significant contribution to the study of modernist poetics.