What is wrong with Rhyme?

[crystalwizard]

The last time I posted a poem, I got the following commentary on it:

'The problem with rhyming poetry, is that it often comes off as forced or slightly skewed. This is what happened here. The rhyme is sound, and I caught it from the offset, but the content does need work. Take 'much' and 'luck', or 'save' and 'blaze''. They don't cut it, to be honest, and I think you know this.'

Now I take issue with that above statement because not only was the rhyme not forced, everyone else who read it, enjoyed it.

In reading through a number of articles on the net concerning poetry I've discovered something unpleasant. This same unpleasantness is echoed by various magazines which buy poetry in their writers guide section. What it amounts to is 'don't use rhyme, it's BAD!!!!' though the statement is usually couched in words such as what I've quoted above.

I stopped after reading a writer's guide recently and wondered 'when did it become bad for poetry to rhyme?' I can't put my finger on a date, but that is what has happened.

Some years back, all poetry rhymed and it was 'BAD' for any poem to exist that did not. Then free souls unfettered by the 'experts' insisted on publishing free verse. Poems no longer had to rhyme. They no longer had to have distinct meter or even make sense. In fact, the less a poem made sense, the more it was praised as being some kind of deep, emotional work.

Poppycock.

I have nothing against free verse. I can spout off gibberish as well as anyone else. However it takes a lot more work and thought to create a poem that has correct meter, rhyme and makes sense.

I have to wonder if any of the current 'experts' in the field of poetry ever bothered to read the old masters. Ever heard of Poe? Perhaps you'll recognize this excerpt:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
''Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door-
Only this, and nothing more.'

Can you imagine some modern expert telling Poe that the rhyme in his poem The Raven was forced? or slightly skewed? That the content needed work? I'm sure they did, when he was alive, but I doubt any of the modern experts would dare express such a view.

Or how about Alfred, Lord Tennyson? I assume our experts have heard of him. Here's the first stanza of his Crossing of the Bar

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

The magazine I was considering submitting a poem to would have rejected his work completely. Their writer's guide said 'no rhyme just for the sake of rhyme'. Read that stanza again. You can tell that he very plainly used 'me' so it would rhyme with 'sea'. That's a blatant case of 'rhyme just for the sake of rhyme'.

I leave it to you to do some research, read the classic poems and think. Then the next time you sit down to write, please let the words come as they want to, regardless of what someone else has told you is 'correct'.

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!

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[PaulMc]

I consider it a fine challenge to create rhyming and/or well-metered poetry in this day and age of free verse.

As Robert Frost said, I feel very free .. within my harness.

Keep the flag flying!

-- Paul McNamee

My Writings
The Tales of Doran Coyle
Managing Editor, SwordAndSorcery.org

[Jordan Lapp]

I'm not sure what the difference is between a free verse poem and flash fiction. Is there one? I too am a great fan of rhyming poetry. It's the one kind that takes some amount of skill in my opinion.

As for the rhymes, 'save' and 'blaze' are passable, but 'much' and 'luck' is stretching it, no?

Jordan Lapp

[crystalwizard]

Jordan Lapp said...

As for the rhymes, 'save' and 'blaze' are passable, but 'much' and 'luck' is stretching it, no?

maybe... maybe not. Here's the full poem, I'll let you judge for yourself


Just Down the Way

Just down the way,
I have a friend,
A man of little means.

A house he has,
A garden too,
With carrots, beets and beans.

Just down the way,
I know a man,
Who hasn't very much

He scrimps and saves,
And just gets by,
He says he has no luck.

Just down the way,
On eve the last,
A fire it did blaze.

A small house burned,
A tiny place,
There wasn't much to save.

A worthless house,
Its roof did leak,
The porch was falling down.

The paint was peeling,
Shutters gone,
The eyesore of the town.

Just down the way,
I had a friend,
He's not there any more.

He died last night,
The smoke was thick,
They found him on the floor.

I miss my friend,
His sunny smile,
His cheerful, happy wave.

I wonder what,
It was that he,
Was trying hard to save.

My friend is gone,
Is yours alive?
When did you see him last?

Time travels on,
This can't be stopped,
Each day becomes the past.

Don't wait too long,
Don't put it off,
It might become too late.

Then you will wish,
To see your friend,
Just standing at your gate.

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!

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[Wes]

I've noticed that many editors have a preconceived bias against rhyming poetry. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that most do. Ed Knight was/is an exception to that, in his great Amazing Journeys magazine. And there are a handful of others.

I have nothing against free verse, having written, read, and enjoyed much of it. It is not, however, a proper substitution for rhyme. Both have their place, and both can reveal poetic flavor in a positive way. Automatic dismissal of rhyme strikes me as terribly narrow-minded and silly. I'm far more interested in the content of a poem and how well it rolls off the mental tongue and stokes the imagination; that's what's important.

Also, I dare say most people find writing rhyming poetry more difficult than free verse, because there's a specific framework within which onetoils when composing the former, while the rules are much less rigid in the latter.

There's a reason why rhyme had and has such a following: it works, having brought enjoyment to thousands over the centuries.

When the chips are down, I believe certain editors don't want to be associated with traditionalism, of which rhyme is a familiar part. They want "cutting edge," (however that nebulous term is defined)disassociative work, and anything less is looked upon with a frown. This may prove an unpopular sentiment, but I propose that the elevation of free verse far above rhyme is a product of the whole post-modernistvision of the past forty-five years. It exemplifies a breaking with tradition, and with the past.


Regards,

Wesley Lambert
The Star Road

[Daniel]

I think it is end-stopped rhyme and/or predictable rhyme that many editors, even those who are not "anti-rhyme," tend to really shy away from.



"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Hazimel]

Yeah, I'm a sonnet writer and that is so passe now its looked at as kind of quaint. You're right that it takes much more craft and thought to work within a form. I think the change took place around the turn of the 20th century and has to do with lit-crit arcanery like 'modernism' and 'post-modernism'.

I think part of the aesthetic criticism is that the structure and rhythm of traditional poetry, the things that helped on remember the poem, seem trite and predictable when printed, in comparison to something edgy and artfully scattered, like Ferlenghetti or Hitchcock. I am woefully out of date with what's hot right now. Other than occasional exposure to a poet laureate on the Newshour, I can't bear most contemporary poetry.

Your rhymes are perfectly acceptable. What most people fail to understand is that only the vowel sounds need to match for a rhyme. Much and Luck is a perfectly acceptable rhyme. Even purely visual rhymes were used by the masters, like Coleridge, when the content demanded a certain word.

'To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.' --Confucius

[J Erwine]

As a reader and an editor, I love rhyming poetry...but then I've always been a bit odd compared to the rest of the world...





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[Loud_G]

I despise the 'no rhyming' rules for poetry. I took a poetry course at the University of Maryland some years ago and fought with the teacher tooth and nail over rhyming and patterns. She seemed to think that rhyming poetry was lower quality and restrictive to expression, not to mention archaic and stupid. The modern poet, it seems, has done away with 100's of years of poetic history all in one go.

I think this occurred some time in the early 1900's (around the 1920's possibly) and that it was a purely American movement. Artistically a lot of weird things were going on in that time period and I think rhyming may have gone out the window as something that didn't fit the flapper frame of mind. It probably grew into the elitist, artsy fartsy bunch that only allow the free expression of the soul through unrhymed rhythmless drivel.

Sadly I think the group of non-rhymers grew into the professors of today and yesterday, thus continuing the foul trend.

(I say this was an American movement because a British writer of the period mentions non-rhyming poetry as an American idiosyncrasy)

So basically it has become a tradition to 'be modern and different' by being the same. They don't seem to realize that 'modern' is so 'yesterday and that even 'post-modern' is old by now.

I for one think that it requires a lot more skill to do a rhymed poem than an unrhymed one.

I don't think that straight rhymes are bad, but I do feel that experimentation with rhyme and rhythm styles would behoove the poet to be. There are many old types of rhythms which I love, but I do think that we should work on developing new rhythms too. New forms of sonnets, new couplets, new poem architecture. Not just 'no architecture.'

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[Dungeoneer]

I'm totally with you, CW. About 7 or 8 years ago, when I still lived in Maryland, the local Borders had an open mic poetry night once a month, and I started going to it. There were a fair amount of people there, mostly folks with no formal education in lit/poetry. All the college folk wrote poems that did NOT rhyme, and I was constantly arguing with them about whether or not poems should. I can say that I am not a fan of free verse, and usually say "if you wanna write an essay, then go write one". But I HAVE heard a few at open mic nite that I enjoyed, but I don't think I would have enjoyed them by reading them. It took the poet him/herself reading it, and properly inflecting tone of voice in the appropriate spots--something I'm sure I would've done wrong (wrong as in 'not the poet's intent') had I read it.


The girl who ran it was taking some sort of college course about poetry, and like to offer us "assignments" for inspiration. It took a few months of me arguing, but she finally assigned us with the challenge of writing something; about quitting;that rhymed. I couldn't contain a triumphant laugh, which made her turn to me and 'assign' me to write one that did NOT. I smirked, agreed, and came back a month later with this:


I am here to tell a tale


That takes place in one month's time


Where I was asked to write a poem


Full of words that do not....sound alike


So I rose up to this challenge


And I sweated, worked, and strived,


The thoughts a-buzzing thru my head


Like hornets 'round their....nest


I thought it would be simple


I thought, how hard could it be?


I thought not rhyming would sound much more


Like prose than po...etic verse (whew)


But this is harder than I dared


To think it, or to fear!


No rhyming doesn't sound quite right


When the words come to my...mind!


So I shall not write this way again


I'll write a poem that DOES rhyme!


I'll write it up and bring it back,


To read it here next...month!


Because poetry that doesn't rhyme,


Don't impress me a bit


I don't like these dumb assignments,


I've had it and I...(argh!)...QUIT!


I never did convince anyone, but from here on, we sorta just agreed to disagree.

[RHFay]

There is nothing really wrong with rhyming poetry, if it's done well. Of course, the trend amongst editors seems to be preference for non-rhyming poetry.

Personally, I have difficulty with rhyme. I get a wonderful idea, a wonderful line or two, and then have trouble finding appropriate rhyming words for the following lines. A poet is restricted when using rhyme, and perhaps some dislike that restriction. I know I do.

Now, you can have a standard structure without rhyme; blank verse is a good example. Blank verse has a regular metre, but no rhyme. Apparently, blank verse in Englishdates back to at least the 16th century, so it's not necessarily a "modern" invention.

Ultimately, individual preferences often dictate what editors will accept or reject. It doesn't always havemuch to do with quality, or how well you rhymed or didn't rhyme. If a certain editor just plain doesn't like rhyme, that's their choice. And it will take quite a bit to change their minds, especially if the concept of "rhyming is bad" is ingrained into their beliefs.

"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.

http://azurelionproductions.com

[Hamstersbane]

CW: As far as your use of what I call "off-rhymes," I think it works well in your poem because of two things: The measure is so strong it actually serves to kind of hide the lack of a "true" rhyme, and also because they rhyming words are actually a stanza apart. Were they sitting line-by-line, I'm not sure they'd have worked quite so well.

I did enjoy this, by the way, although I might take issue with some of your punctuation (then again, there's a reason I don't write poetry -- I stink at it).




Jeff Parish
Jennings Grove, an online horror serial novel
http://jenningsgrove.gravesidetales.com

[Hamstersbane]

Dungeoneer: That was quite fun. Kind of reminded me of the poetic notes in 'The Private Eyes' with Don Knotts.

'To dig your own grave, is quite a sight. But to bury yourself, is not very bright. There are more to kill, and the job'll be done. Now there are five, soon there'll be a lot less.'

Jeff Parish
Jennings Grove, an online horror serial novel
http://jenningsgrove.gravesidetales.com

[M. A. Shah]

Ok, i dont really know much about poetry, but come on, it was you yourself saying (in another forum) that change is for good and whoever doesnt want to change himself, gets trodden on by the hordes of people who want to.
I dont have anything against rhyming poetry, but this poem of yours struck me as kind-of weak.
I mean do you really expect that if Dickens was to try and get his novels published today, he'd stand much chance of doing so?? I mean the slow moving plot and blah blah blah. Anyone reading (who doesnt already know of his fame) wouldnt get past the first page.
Really, i think that rhyming poetry, if not done exceptionally well, reminds me of my first few days at school, when we were chanting off "twinkle twinkle..."
No offense meant. Dont take it personally.

Ranks broken, hearts perplexed, no feeling deeper than skin.

[MattDempsey]

Rhyming poetry is awful, unless it's done well.

None rhyming poetry is awful too, unless it's done well.


At the end of the day, you can break every rule in writing as long as the work you produce is done well. Its possibly easier if you don't break them all in the same piece though.

In terms of personal likes and dislikes, I much prefer rhythm over anything else, probably because of Masefield's 'Cargos' which I did in school. I always hear a train accelerating when I read it.

[RLCopple]

I think the key is that doing good rhyme requires skill, more so than not. I've tried my hand at it and it is very hard to find constructions within meter that sound natural. For instance, I think the problem the editor probably had with one of your words was probably:

A fire it did blaze.

Is that's not a natural way we might say it. So it probably looked to him/her that you said it that way to get 'blaze' on the end. My best guess, anyway.

But it is difficult.

However, forms are good in their own ways, they are good for learning, certainly, and I've had a few poems published, some of them rhyming. But most of mine aren't.

But what really makes a poem, a poem is the way it flows off the tongue when you read it (and meter is still important even if it isn't the same meter for each line...its called 'flow'), and it should convey vivid images that get the point across or tell the 'story.' There are all sorts of literary devices to give a poem flow and one's imagination for the images that paint a picture.

I've been successful and also not. I've have a lot more bad poems sitting on my hard drive than I have published.

R. L. Copple

blog.rlcopple.com
www.raygunradio.com
www.haruah.com

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[BitterHermit]

Speaking for myself: I prefer to receive good poetry. I prefer to not have to wade through a slush of seuss to get to it. My admonition is to only submit rhymed poetry if it's good. Because reading bad rhyming poetry is like hitting yourself in the temple with a pencil - eventually it gives you an unbearable headache and sparks your temper.


Yes, it does take more skill to write rhyming poetry well. I think that those who have a firm prohibition against rhyme are being overprotective of themselves and missing out for it. I seriuosly despise a great deal of contemporary poetry from the universities and MFA programs. They have such a loathesome affinity for either complete abstraction or utter banality.


Rhyme is formed by the vowel AND its succeeding consonant(s) of the accented syllable(s). So pairing the vowel but missing the consonant sound falls out into the gray world of "slip-rhyme" or "sprung-rhyme" or whatever other terminology they want to put on it. In this particular case, I don't see any problem with it - I don't hear any problem with it either, and I have very discerning ears.


I do agree with the comment above about the strained syntax being more distracting than any slip of rhyme.


In the end, the problem is not at all with rhyme. It is the prolific nature of rhyme and its disonance and successive agony it causes editors when slushing that is the problem. Going through twenty badly rhymed poems is not worth the one that may or may not be waiting and worthy for the page.


As a writer, I somewhat share your angst. I write a great deal of form poems lately, and they rhyme. Who to submit them to? Alas!


Literarily speaking: More prolific than sin!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
Hunh? (other blog): http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com

[RHFay]

What's wrong with seuss? [img]/emoticons/shocked.gif[/img] I like Dr. Seuss! [img]/emoticons/smilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.

Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
http://azurelionproductions.com

[BitterHermit]

Seuss is fine . . . for a certain audience. It's all audience-driven, aka market-driven, aka consumer-driven. The point is that people end up trying to write serious poems with Seussian meter, and the result is most often painfully lewdicrous (sic). Actually, Seuss was a pretty brilliant guy by my estimation. I've seen some of his stuff targeted for adults, and I've got to tip my hat. But he's a tough one to mimic well. And it is hardly ever a compliment in this realm to be compared to him (though I know a guy who has a blurb on his book that proudly announces, "not since Seuss has anyone treated rhyme . . ." I laughed my self breathless over it, because it was a vicious back-handed compliment).


Stepping aside from my ivory tower cousins for a moment, I would like to suggest that a poem is, or, more accurately, should be an organic entity. Or at least it should have an open, organic structure that is both complete and incomplete without the reader/auditor. By organic, I mean dynamic in the manner of being greater than the sum of its parts. It has to take on a life of its own within the mind of the reader/auditor - whether a life of image, sound, sense, sensibility, or pure intellect. Rhyme can give life - but it more often gives a mechanistic quality to poems in the hands of those not adept at rhyme. One thing about it: it is obvious which way the rhymed poem went, whether organic or mechanistic. Because the organic thrives, and the mechanistic disturbs if it offers any impulse at all. Free verse is often less obvious when it fails; but, transversely, it is sometimes less obvious in its success as well. Blank verse is good. I like blank verse. But you really should build internal rhyme, assonance, and consonance internally into the lines; this takes skill to do with the subtlety to seem natural, but can work as deliberate disonance to drive other functions within the poem.


CW: I read Alfred Lord Tenny last night for the first time in a great while. Thank you for suggesting it. He was very smooth with both end and internal rhyme. Hard sometimes not to choke on his archaic language . . . but it was not archaic at the time he wrote it. Try cummings and Eliot and Plath. And my wife's poetry: http://mother2rah.wordpress.com is pretty good with and without rhyme. She is very adept at internal rhyme in the "blank sonnet" or quatorzain (an unrhymed sonnet, which, according to some purists, is not a sonnet at all but merely a 14-line verse designated most accurately as quatorzain).






Literarily speaking: More prolific than sin!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
Hunh? (other blog): http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com

[crystalwizard]

You're welcome for the suggestion, Dave

personally, I like the archaic language. I like the sound of it and the way it flows. Much nicer to my ear than our modern language, at least for poetry.

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!


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Managing Editor of Flashing Swords</a>

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[BitterHermit]

"Prisoner of Chillon" by George Gordon Byron (aka, Lord Byron)

Byron seems at times to flow like Seuss in this rhyme-heavy poem, but it works. It's one of my favorites - ever. A friend of mine gifted me a copy bought at the actual Chillon castle.

This would be very unlikely to see print today. Unless maybe someone did a tribute to it on Abu Grahibe (sp? [img]/emoticons/confused.gif[/img] ). And even then, it would likely find it's most appreciative audience among spec authors and lovers. It is definitely a spec poem, as it is written loosely based on actual events - I think Byron got the account third-hand. My memory escapes at this point on the historical aspects.

Read it. I really think you'll enjoy it.

Literarily speaking: More prolific than sin!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
Hunh? (other blog): http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com

[xiaotien]

i feel for you, CW.

when i did write poetry,
it always did rhyme. i liked
to read it aloud and feel it
slip from the tongue like
honey and ice cream.

it sounded and *felt* good
to me.

now it's considered juvenile
and not so high brow.

but i say with all things,
these fads are cyclical. one
day, rhyming poetry will come
back.

do what *you* like when you
write. keep rhyming!
*fist in air*

cindy p.
a little sweet, a little sour.
http://xiaotien.blogspot.com

[Kainja]

I like free verse and I don't think it's a case of 'anything goes.' Even free verse has to have a rhythm. But rhyming poetry is harder to write. At least I've found it so. Generally, the poetry that I remember best is rhyming poetry. Poe for example. His 'the city in the sea' is probably my favorite. But read Dylan Thomas if you want to see the potential in free verse.

Charles Gramlich
http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com/

[Lyn McConchie]

howls of laughter. oh YES! the old masters get away with it because they're classics and anything is 'forgiven,' but then - every few years an exasperated writer takes some classic book, types it out and submits it to a publisher under his/her own name, to receive in reply a page of vitriol about what a lousy book this is and how no one will ever publish it. I think the last time was a UK writer about 4-5 years back who'd had a bellyful of comments on his own work, and submitted Middlemarch under his name, only changing all character/place names. The editor (and I bet she's still trying to live it down) wrote that it was a poor piece of work, etc etc. The far more interesting thing to me was that she didn't even recognize it! That's also been done, I believe, to poetry magazines, using poems by classic poets. Again, they weren't only rejected with unpleasant comments, it was clear that the editor didn't even recognize the work.
I write poetry, a small but steady trickle, and over the years I've had most of what I've written published, I write a nice rhyming doggerel, nothing pretentious, normally humor, and I like it that way. I'm a Kipling fan too. So stuff that commentator on your poem, rhyming isn't 'wrong', not rhyming isn't wrong either. If it works it's right, if it doesn't it isn't, and that's it.

[Richard H. Fay]

...Generally, the poetry that I remember best is rhyming poetry.
Charles Gramlich
http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com/

Rhyme can be a memory aid. Perhaps a lot of traditional poetry rhymes because of this fact, that rhyming verse can be easier to remember.

Personally, I like to read rhyming poetry, when the rhyme is done well. However, it seems like a jolt to the brain if the pattern is broken, or if the rhyme is too forced. There are words that may technically rhyme (soft rhyme, or whatever it's called), but that don't read as if they truly rhyme. In those cases, it may be a judgment call whether or not to use such words. Perhaps, in those instances, stronger rhyme would work better.

Of course, I've seen some free verse that looks like prose chopped up into lines and stanzas, with no poetic feel to it whatsoever. And I'm talking about what I've seen presented as examples of good modern poetry in some of the current mainstream poetry journals, not forum or blog poetry. Free verse without any poetic elements can be less-than-poetic. My work has suffered from some of this on occasion, but I'm learning to up the poetic quality of my free verse.

I find rhyming poetry to be devilishly hard to write. Perhaps I'm really not much of a poet, but I find free verse easier to write. My ideas don't always go down a rhyming path, and trying to force them down that path may just ruin them.

I have one epic rhyming poem I've been working on, on-and-off, for a couple of years now. I've got some stanzas completed, some rhyme done, but trying to rhyme all the time has slowed the work to a standstill. I may finish this piece, some day.