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Poetry has a thing or two to learn.
The caterpillar refers, of course, to meter, which is the fundament of all poetry. Even most non-metrical poetry, including free verse, depend heavily upon the cadences of the language, the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. By repeating established patterns of cadence the poet can establish a rhythm. Similarly, certain syllables may change their stress in relation to the words which precede or follow them. The iamb contains two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed.