10 Ways to Create Rhythm & Pacing in Your Poetry

1. Think of rhythm more broadly than only the classic metrical patterns. Understand it as the beat and pace of a poem.  Think of it as pattern, movement, cadence.  As flow, even  the pulse of the poem--in the body and in the mouth when it is spoken.  If your understanding of rhythm is more broad; then,  you can welcome the plethora of ways to create it. 
2. Open your ear to identifying rhythm everywhere.  Start to listen for it in the variety of everyday speech around you,  in the sound of insects and bird calls, in traffic patterns at the alfresco restaurant or out past your front porch.  Get familiar with your own individual rhythm--in speech, in your walk, in the general feel of what it is to live in your body.  Our bodies have a natural syncopation--our hearts beat and blood moves. What does your rhythm feel like? 
3. Read more poetry.  The answer to almost any poetry technique question is to keep reading poetry.  Read the classics; read contemporary. Read Dada; read Imagists.  The fact is, the more you read, the more poetic techniques you come to understand, and the more ways you can get things done in your poetry writing practice. 
4. Read poetry out loud.  A poem is one thing on paper, another in the ear, and still another in the mouth.  Experience a poem in all its ways of transmission. When you read a poem out loud, you start to feel the built-in rhythm and the effect other sound devices (such as alliteration, consonance, assonance, etc) have on the pacing of each line.  Experiencing these when reading aloud will inform how you use them in your writing. 
5. Listen to more poetry. There are so many wonderful online archives of poems being read aloud. Not only will you hear the effects of rhythm and pacing in the poem, you may luckily experience the unique rhythm of certain poets voices, for example: T.S. Eliot reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Gertrude Stein reading "If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso," a poem that seems to mimic Picasso's painting style in his cubist period.  It is especially useful to hear how the poet intends a poem to be read.  A few sources:  The Poetry Archive , BBC Poetry Out Loud, Library of Congress Audio Recordings, and Poetry Foundation's LISTEN feature, which posts podcasts and a poem of the day audio recording.  Watch the performance of poetry, too!  Poetry Out Loud | Poetry Foundation has recitation videos and a brief explanation about the art of recitation.  Listen to the Beat Poets on Spotify.  Listen to spoken word poets; PoetryBones  has featured Tanya Davis' "How to Be Alone" here and Shane Koyczan's "Instructions for a Bad Day" here. Your ear gets used to hearing poetry. You can begin to imagine how it will look on the page, and try some of the techniques yourself.  
6. Study up on sound devices. Assonance, consonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and the different types of rhyme, for starters.  Perrine's Sound and Sense has a whole chapter "Musical Devices" and example poems. Sometimes the book is available for download or to read digitally on Hoopla through your local library. 
7. Study up on line breaks.  Enjambment, caesura, ellipses.  Each offer certain effects in poetry.  Check out more Line Breaks Definitions at Lit Charts to get you started.  You don't have to be an English major to appreciate these.  Just scrolling through the list can be overwhelming, but don't let it be.  Instead look for the way you already have been breaking your lines--what is that technique called?  Then experiment with other options in the same "family." That's all.  No dissertation needed.
8. Experiment with punctuation. JackCooper offers a brief treatise on various uses of punctuation in poetry here.  PoetryBones explored Jamaica Kincaid's use of the semi colon in "Girl" here.  Though the piece of fiction could be revised into paragraphs and employ sentences, the intended effect would be lost.  Kincaid's technique lets the information the speaker is departing to feel like an onslaught of details and accusations and disapproval along with the well-intentioned guidance.  See what Dickinson's "em dash" can do for you!
9. Become aware of the rhythm of your other work?   Most writers earn their livelihood outside of writing.  What do you do?   There is most likely a rhythm there that you have adopted and taken for granted.  At work tomorrow, consider the natural (or enforced) pace and rhythm of your daily work.  Train horses? Write poetry in your head next time you ride. Administrative assistant? Write a poem that duplicates the rhythm of the work you do between 8am and 10am every Monday morning.  And so on.  It's there; you just never considered its significance.
10. Practice speaking other languages.  I took French in high school, used it briefly in travel to Paris, and continue to practice it in the shower by reading the shampoo bottle's "mode d'emploi" directions...because I love the sound of the words and the feel of the pronunciation in my mouth!  Tune into Irish radio--I heard it across my back porch, through my neighbor's small summer kitchen  for many years.  There are hundreds of global language channels on TV. Tune in.  Appreciate the varied pacing in different forms of speech, from informative to  performative, to conversational.

So much fun to be had in exploring all the ways pacing and rhythm can be created in your poetry writing.  Of course, it must always be used in service to the poem's intended effects and meanings.  Share a sample of your rhythmic style.  What techniques do you tend to use the most?