ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the work of Derek Walcott; at rhythms in African music and verse; at polyrhythmicity and its implications for Western sensibilities; at a range of postcolonial free verse; at the Japanese hokku form; at Indian rāg rhythms; and at a worldwide selection of poetry by women to try to answer the question: are there rhythms outside the narrow Euro-American tradition that can shed light on the rhythmic complexity of free verse? If so, what are they, and how do they work within a poem? There is an extended analysis of the rhythms of Walcott’s ‘The Sea Is History’ (Walcott 1980: 25–28) included to demonstrate the beauty of a free verse form in which rhythms are defined by other rhythms in a relative relationship.
