Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed and Where and Why" is a sonnet. A sonnet is a poem with fourteen lines; there are usually ten syllables in each line, and the poem is written in iambic pentameter.
Iambic pentameter refers to how a line of poetry is constructed. In a poem, each line consists of stressed and unstressed syllables: this is the meter of a poem. A foot is made...
Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed and Where and Why" is a sonnet. A sonnet is a poem with fourteen lines; there are usually ten syllables in each line, and the poem is written in iambic pentameter.
Iambic pentameter refers to how a line of poetry is constructed. In a poem, each line consists of stressed and unstressed syllables: this is the meter of a poem. A foot is made up of either two of three syllables. If the foot has two syllables that proceed in an unstressed/stressed pattern, we call this an iamb. So, a line written in iambic pentameter will have five sets of unstressed and stressed syllables. Let's take a look at the first four lines of the sonnet in question:
What(unstressed) lips (stressed)/ my (unstressed) lips (stressed)/ have (unstressed) kissed (stressed),/ and (unstressed) where (stressed),/ and (unstressed) why (stressed),/
I have/ forgot/ten, and /what arms /have lain/
Under/ my head/ till morn/ing; but/ the rain/
Is full/ of ghosts/ tonight,/ that tap/ and sigh/
So, you can see there are five metrical feet in each line. Each line also proceeds in an unstressed/stressed pattern, which makes this a poem written in iambic pentameter.
Also, it looks like the poem in question is an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. The Italian sonnet is usually divided into an octave (with eight lines having a rhyme scheme of abbaabba) and a sestet (with six lines having a variable rhyme scheme of either cdecde, cdedce, cdcdcd, or another—the pattern is flexible).
Hope this helps!
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