“Butter” is a lyric poem written in a single stanza of 25 lines. It is free verse, meaning that the poet employs no formal pattern of meter or rhyme. That doesn’t mean, however, that the poem is without music. Lyric verse, as the name implies, generally features a sense of musicality. “Butter” achieves its music through variations of meter and other poetic devices. Although the pattern varies, elements of prosody—or patterns of rhythm and sound—exist. For example, in Line 3, after the speaker’s mother takes a pinchful of butter from “the stick | and eats | it plain, | explaining” (Line 3). The line is in iambic tetrameter, wherein there are four feet (units of meter), each one containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. This pattern is called a rising meter. It feels a little like a march, positive and forthright.

An example of falling meter occurs on Line 2, with “more than anyone” (Line 2), wherein a trochee—a foot with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable—is followed by a dactyl—a foot with a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.