THE REASON FOR RHYME

In February, under the guise of love we had explored the use of various devices to inject “sound” into our poetry. The results were wonderfully expressed and presented, giving us a broader scope of how poetry stirs the senses.

If you were to ask someone what a poem is, it would elicit a number of responses. As poets, we have learned that poetry can be found in pretty much any place we look. A laundry list could inspire a poem, etc.

But to a general reader, they may say a poem is something that rhymes. We work with words, but sometimes despise the use of rhymes, yet surely they are not less important nor effective as any of the sound devices we used in February. Rhymes are certain sounds that help convey out thoughts. In March, we will delve into the use and reason for rhyme.

So, what are rhymes? Rhymes generally are words that differ only on their initial sounds. Sounds like true and blue, or leg and beg. Looking at that, we find that some words do not have an English word with which it rhymes: orange, month, circle, purple are some examples. Even a word that poets use a lot in our work, LOVE, has a limited number of rhyme words. There are subtleties to the rhyming process. These will be dissected during March.

The first thing we will incorporate in our works are the placements of rhyme. We are familiar with end rhymes. These words obviously come at the end of our lines.

Initial rhymes conversely come at the beginning of the lines.

(Free xxxx xxxx xxxx.
See xxxx xxxx xxxx)

Medial (middle) rhymes are a bit more complex. They can be “internal”, a rhyme between a medial word and the end rhyme.

(xxx thou xxx cow).

A “close” rhyme is an internal rhyme between words that are in close proximity to each other, neither at the end of a line.

(Smug xxx bug xxx).

“Interlaced” rhymes are words that appear internally in two consecutive lines.

(xxxxx door xxxx,
xxxx floor xxxx)

Be mindful of these rhyme placements as we use as many instances as we can in our poems this week when we take time to rhyme. Any subject; any form! Good luck!