The Tradition

“The Tradition” is a free verse poem, meaning it does not follow a fixed rhyme-scheme or a metrical pattern. Two irregularities in Brown’s free verse are worth noting. First, though the poem does not follow a fixed rhyme-scheme, the last word of Line 13 rhymes with the last word of Line 14. Thus, “The Tradition” ends on a rhyming couplet:

Where the world ends, everything cut down

John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown (Lines 13-14).

This encourages the reader to pay special attention to these two lines.

Second, even though the poem does not follow a fixed metrical pattern, Brown’s verse is more regular than others of its genre. All fourteen lines of “The Tradition” are very close to the same metrical length (approximately 10 syllables long).

These poetic details reinforce the poem’s themes. By definition, a tradition is regular, because it is an inherited and well-established pattern of belief and behavior. Thus, the repeated sounds on the last two lines (“down” and “Brown”) and the regularity of the poem’s line lengths fit well with its content, which is highly concerned with pattern and repetition.