Meter (non-American spelling: metre) describes the linguistic sound patterns of verse. Scansion is the analysis of poetry's metrical and rhythmic patterns. Prosody is sometimes used to describe poetic meter, and indicates the analysis of similar aspects of language in linguistics. Meter is part of many formal verse forms.
Most verse writing uses meter as its primary organizational mode, as opposed to prose, which uses grammatical and discoursal units like sentences and paragraphs. Verse may also use rhyme and other technical devices that are often associated with poetry.
Not all verse is poetry. Generally speaking, what separates the two is that in poetry language achieves the highest possible level of condensation.
