Falling Movements in Free Verse: Turning Back in Poems by William Carlos Williams and Sylvia Plath

ABSTRACT Verse rhythm is formed in a process, where reading adjusts the individual sounds of the poem. It may be perceived as a play between directions and balances. The directions can be rising or falling. Here, the author investigates four kinds of falling rhythm, which are back-structuring (the phrase is perceived as a whole), equivalences (approximate repetition), falling phrases (the stress comes first), and extensions (from a focus). In William Carlos Williams’ poem “A Red Wheelbarrow,” the line pairs form closed back-structures that are completed with the gestalts of the closed equivalences out of repeated enjambments in the middle of every line pair. In Sylvia Plath’s poem “Words,” the heavy streaming extensions in the first part turn into irregular balances in the second part, which provides a picture of depressive tranquility.