What is wrong with Rhyme?

[crystalwizard]

>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.

that exactly where it came from, and what it was used for. The oldest languages are far better suited for rhyming lines, too, than modern American English is, which is why we sometimes have to force a rhyme.

[jensfort]

I do not find anything wrong in rhyme if there is rhyming in stories it sounds very nice I like poems which has nice rhymes

[RLCopple]

To follow up with what Ray said, free verse, if done well, isn't just prose chopped up into poetic looking lines. It has to have flow and imagery that make it poetic, which still involves meter and a "rhyme" on some level. For instance, the Psalms in the Bible are a form of Hebraic poetry that was a rhyme of thought more than words. It puts the same thought/picture into couplets or triplets, sometimes contrasting, sometimes looking at it from different angels. Free form should have a flow in the thought which has a "rhyme" quality to it, even if the words themselves don't rhyme.

But the most important thing in rhyming poetry is that it be natural, and not forced. If it at all looks like you've arranged the sentence, or broken out of the style you are using to squeeze in a rhyme, then it will tend to be rejected or not work. And that's what makes so much of rhyming poetry turn out bad, because it appears forced. And though I don't agree with it, that's probably why some editors simply don't want to see it. They've read enough bad rhyming poetry they've given up on trying to find the few brave souls who can do it well. So to avoid losing their minds, they just say no rhyming poetry, please. Sort of like the magazine (don't recall the name) who has in their guidelines that they don't want to see any vampire stories, because they've read so many bad ones they are totally burnt out on them.

But I should also add that sometimes what sounds natural to me, doesn't to another. Maybe different parts of the country, so culture can play into it, but I remember someone who would look at my poem and say this or that word sounded too modern, or archaic, or forced, and I simply couldn't see it. It sounded fine to me. So a lot, like submitting short stories, depends on the preferences and taste of the editors. They may see "forced" where you or another editor doesn't.

The classics probably wouldn't work today simply because the language is archaic, and that's not in vogue. It was perfectly fine for their time, and was a natural sounding rhyme scheme for their time.

But one should also be aware of the different types of rhymes. There are end rhymes, beginning rhymes, and even if there are enough syllables, middle rhymes. It doesn't work to use an end rhyme with a beginning rhyme (which refers which syllable in the word rhymes with another).

And while easy rhymes like "buck" and "luck" are fine, or "sea" and "me," like writing short stories, those can be trite usage, already done by the classics and copied numerous times. So what really strikes bells for editors are the more unexpected rhymes, words not often paired but really work together to not only rhyme, but form an interesting thought.

Bottom line, the more structure and rhyme you use, the more restrictions you place upon your work, and that means the more skill you have to have to make it sound natural and interesting. And the more people who attempt something requiring a lot of skill, the more bad stuff you'll find, and thus why unless you are really good at it, it is hard to get published if you rhyme.

That said, I enjoy a good rhyming poem as well as the next person. And I think it isn't a good idea for a magazine to not accept them at all. Speaking as an editor at a literary magazine that gets lots and lots of poetry.

[Richard H. Fay]

...free verse, if done well, isn't just prose chopped up into poetic looking lines...

I've seen that, free verse that looks like prose chopped into poetic-looking lines, with no apparent rhyme nor reason for the line breaks. I've seen it in the examples of poetry featured on the web sites of some fairly prominent poetry publications. And I just don't get it.

Granted, I'm no expert on current trends in poetry, and I may have been guilty of this very same thing on occasion (especially with some of the works I wrote when I first began writing poetry again after quite a hiatus from verse composition), but it looks wrong to me. It certainly looks less poetic that the more traditionally-structured classics (rhyming or not).

Give me rhyming poetry any day over this prose masquerading as poetry being written by some contemporary poets. Give me archaic language over language so contemporary that it doesn't even look like poetry.

Frankly, rhymed poetry with archaic language looks more poetic to me than some of the current works alleging to be poetry.

[RLCopple]

Well, even stuff that looks like "prose chopped up into poetic lines" is supposed to have some poetic feel to it, vivid imagery and flow that conveys an experience/concept. But I'm with you. Some of the stuff that passes for poetry at times feels like reading a textbook on brain surgery, as far as my comprehension of it goes. But some people like puzzles more than others, and don't mind spending time trying to figure out the obscure meaning.

I've written a little bit like that, one in particular that you'd have to know how a star is formed to get the gist of what the poems about. Without that knowledge, it would just be, "Hum, interesting." That was published by Dragons, Knights, and Angels back when they were in business.

But I tend to gravitate toward poetry that is easily understood, but has that unexpected "Ah" at the end.

[JoshBrown]

there once was a man form nantucket......