Golias, could you post a defining distinction between the two terms that we can all agree on and use as a guide for future discussion? My own distinction is a bit fuzzy, since it seems to me that rhythm is intrinsic to meter, although meter, being related to the measure of the line itself, isn't intrinsic to rhythm. In terms of music, meter seems to me to provide the base line where rhythm could be described as the rifs or rat-a-tats or arpeggios and even the pauses, yet we name formal meters in poetry by the rhythms (anapestic or dactyllic or iambic or trochaic) as well as by the beats (pentameter, tetrameter, etc.). Would you call meter the numeric measurement of the line and rhythm the recurring patterns of meters?
This might be a good subject for our Honorary Poet Lariat to come in on.
Carol
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