Could you please explain cadence?

Hello everyone,

I am not a poet, never was, although I do write silly stuff for the fantasy WIPs, usually awful. My question now is about the story that I wrote. One of my critiquers told me it's so experimental in feel and description that it needs to be reflected in my language, the way the story is told. Essentially, they advised me to poeticize it - not with more metaphor and similes which are already there. But literally write it with the free verse cadence, or like a prose poem.

I have no clue about this! I am not even a native speaker of English, and when I meet free verse poetry I am usually perplexed, even when I enjoy it. I don't know what makes it work, and I am very afraid that it's the cadence, the natural feel of the language, something that is inherently closed away from me, or something.

I can imitate meter, I can even rhyme when I try (really-really hard), and I can read either rhyme-only or meter-only poems smoothly, without tripping, like what Bowers or Wilbur wrote, and I read contemporary poetry occasionally because it has some of the richest imagery I can find. But some Prose Poems or Free Verse poetry are severely confusing. What makes the reading of a poem such as this, poetic, could you please tell me? Because I meet a bump in the second line, and it trips me, and I am afraid I don't understand why it's there.

TS Eliot said:

The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript
Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.

When evening quickens faintly in the street,
Wakening the appetites of life in some
And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript,
I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning
Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,
If the street were time and he at the end of the street,
And I say, "Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript."

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Is it wrong to have these "trippings" in my inner ear while I read this? Is it meant to be there? Why? In my story, the critiquer told me that I have flow, and then I disrupt that flow with rhythmic bumps. What does it mean when Eliot does it?

Or this one, where I actually have several reading "bumps" occur.

TS Eliot said:

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty green iron table, saying: “If the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden ...” I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.

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Sorry if this reads like whining, but I really want to learn, and I feel that my overall English prose language can get better from understanding this. I tried to do this to my short story, if only as a writing excercise, but as I began... of course I fell back into iambic meter. And now it sounds too much like an epic poem, and it's bad for its purpose there =((. What makes free verse so free yet restrictive at the same time?

(Also, a lesser question. When I read "our" in a prose poetry, is it meant to be read as one syllable, or two? Diphtongs like these confuse me a lot because I bump on them every single time).

Thank you in advance.

Thank you, Filigree.

Yes, from the massive amount of replies, I gather it is sort of fuzzy even to the native speakers. Basically, no one can put it into a guide or a scheme so that everyone can understand it, so it is... magic, or something. I suppose it doesn't have a pattern to it so much as the reader lets/welcomes the author leading them in whichever way the author goes. The subjectivity of cadence does not matter. You follow the lead you are given, and do not question it. Like in a dance. Is this the correct perception of it?

I wonder if a lot of people, though, do have to adjust/readjust their inner ear while they read free verse as compared to simple prose. For example,

"I am here forever, in our cozy home." {i am HEre foREver, in our COzy HOme.} "Our" needs to be one-syllabled for this to be read smoother.
and
"And I will be in our home." {and I will BE in O-ur HOme.} Here "our" needs to be two-syllabled for the meter to emerge?

The thing is, in prose people do not hunt meter specifically when they read, (I assume it is more of a perk than the main attraction) so it might just be read "whatever" even if the author wants specific meter to emerge, and the rhythm, therefore, will be broken.
No?

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If you please can tell me, which of this sounds more flowy, or natural as the prose segment?

A. When I walk around for days, sometimes I discover roses. They're so white and fresh and shy, yet the thorns still keep their secrets. (Solid-meter);

B. When I walk around for days, there will be roses on my path. But I won't touch them lest they break. (Mixed meter);

C. When I wander for days, I will search and find my roses. And, frightened by the thorns I cannot see, I'll get a glimpse and then I'm gone. (Needs adjustment of stress and elongation to be read properly);

D. When or how of my wanderings do not matter. The roses do. The dark leaf, and the thorn, and the persistent smell of sweet decay - everything they give, and more. (I do not think it has a lot of meter, even though it might have its own rhythm? Is this the Speechly pattern Eliot is talking about? I have no clue).

It is not a question of what is better or worse here, but mostly about which would be too obvious and/or annoying if you read prose and then - oh no, you realize you are led into meter of some sort. Is it usually jarring?

Thank you again.