Cherrylog Road

Each of the 18 stanzas of the poem consists of six unrhymed lines. The meter is extremely flexible and does not follow any traditional pattern. The length of the lines also varies considerably. The shortest lines are dimeters, consisting of just two poetic feet: “Sparkplugs, bumpers” (Line 57), for example, is a dimeter consisting of two trochees. (A trochee is a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.) The longer lines tend to be tetrameters (four poetic feet) but the most common line is the trimeter, or three poetic feet. That can also be thought of as a three-beat line, which means that three syllables are stressed. These lines often contain anapests. An anapest is two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. Anapestic meter moves the line along quickly, which makes it quite suitable for narrative poems such as “Cherrylog Road.” Dickey has a story to tell and he wants to keep it moving forward. The anapests are often combined with iambs or trochees to create the trimeter line. “In the parking lot of the dead” (Line 25), for example, consists of an anapest followed by an