While “History Lesson” is composed in free verse and uses no formal pattern of meter or rhyme, it is lineated specifically in five tercets, finishing with a couplet. Internal rhyme—rhymes of words in the middle of the lines with other words either at the end of a line or in the middle of the next—abounds as well, evident in the first stanza with “in” (Line 1), “strip” (Line 2), “Mississippi” (Line 2), and “hips” (Line 3). In the second stanza, the short “u” sound in “cuts” (Line 5) echoes in “Gulf” (Line 6) and then in the next stanza in “rush” (Line 7). The long “o” of “alone” (Line 8) resonates with “pose” (Line 10), whose long “o” is then echoed in “opened” (Line 11).

In the fifth stanza, “plot” (Line 14) internally rhymes with and complicates “colored” (Line 15). Internal and slant rhymes, which are imperfect rhymes of words that sound similar but are not identical matches, create a kind of energy in a poem as well as music. Although the language of “History Lesson” is natural and conversational, the poet has paid close attention to the relationship of one word to another and how those relationships affect the emotional impact of the poem on the reader.