Blank Verse, Here and There
By and large, in "Out, Out" Frost employs a form called blank verse. This allows the poet to use iambic pentameter when he or she wants to, but the poet is also not wedded to a specific format like a haiku or sonnet. So... what do we mean by iambic pentameter? Well, an iamb is really just a pair of syllables, the first one being unstressed and the second one stressed. (If you say "allow" out loud, you'll hear the iambic rhythm: da DUM.) In the case of iambic pentameter, you have lines with five ("penta-" means five) of these iambs hanging out together. Check it out:
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright. (30)
Of course, blank verse just means iambic pentameter that doesn't rhyme, but we can't say that this pattern holds up throughout the poem. Just check out this line, for example:
So. But the hand was gone already. (27)
While you do get an iambic pattern to a certain degree in this line, it's definitely not following the pentameter from other lines. So, what's up with that, Frosty? Why would he employ such a regular, rigid form and then break it so completely? Well, in the case of line 27, Frost interrupts his own meter to let us know that something terrible has happened. You must stop reading the poem at the end of the word, "So." The punctuation and the meter interruption allow Frost to make his point of death in verse. The flow of the poem dies, just as the boy is about to.
This back and forth, between a regular iambic pattern, and variations on that theme, seem like pretty appropriates choices for form and meter if you ask us. This poem explores the ways that work, and machines, force us into hard, steadfast roles—either we're working, or we're not worth consideration. The steadfastness of the iambic lines reflect that. And yet, there's something deeply unsettling about this arrangement, in terms of the content (the boy's death) and as reflected in the varying metrical lines throughout the poem. "What kind of ground has all the mechanized labor put us on?" Frost seems to ask us with these shifting line rhythms. Shaky indeed.