Read the excerpt from “I Am Offering This Poem.” It’s all I have to give, and all anyone needs to live, and to go on living inside, when the world outside no longer cares if you live or die; remember, I love you. How does the poet create a sense of rhythm in this excerpt?

The repeated word “and” links the phrases “and all anyone needs to live” and “and to go on living inside,” creating a recurring beat as the poem is read aloud. The lines are not all similar in length, and the excerpt does not show a clear rhyme or regular stress pattern. The best choice is repeating “and” in lines 2 and 3.

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