| Meter in poetry is the syllabic structure or rhythm of the poem; in other words, the way the poem is set up. If you read a rhymed poem, you can pick out the meter by which lines , or which groups of lines rhyme. Form, on the other hand is the way to describe a particular type of common meter.
A good example of this is the Haiku, a japanese "form" of poetry. Every haiku is structured the same way, and although they don't rhyme, all share the same meter; five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and then five again in the third.
There are many other "forms" of poetry, each with it's own different type of meter; some examples would be the limerick, the cinquain, or the Sonnet. |