When Is A Poem Not A Poem?

There are many varieties of rhyme. Without rhyme, a poem is not a poem. It may be a blank poem, it may be blank verse, it may be free verse, yet, rhyme and meter are what make a poem a poem and not something else. Unfortunately some late-school theorists equate poems with poetry, but let me re-iterate: poems are a form of poetry. Poetry is a heading and its categories include the poem, the free form, the free verse, the blank poem, and blank verse. This goes without mentioning that other forms of art can be considered poetry.

When a work deviates from rhyme but sticks to meter, it might become a blank poem or blank verse. When it rhymes but has lost it metrical value, it would become free form. This is when a poem ceases to be a poem; when it has no rhyme or meter.

One World

It is because of this post-modern misappropriation of poems to poetry that poets have divided into two groups: those who support tradition and favor R&M (rhyme and meter), and those who choose to ignore tradition in favor of FV (free verse). But, doesn’t it just seem so, . . . extremist to divide poets into two groups instead of rejoicing that all poets are part of the poetry world? It is only one world after all.

Instead of segregating yourself into just one little corner of it and focusing only on one particular area of it, why not embrace the whole of it? After all: the wider you open your eyes, the more you will see. The more you look at, the more you will see. And, there are some great and wonderful things to view.

Definition

Rhyme (noun) – “The repetition of accented sounds in words, usually falling at the end of verse lines.”    (Norton Anthology of English Literature Ed.6, Vol.2)

Rhyme (noun)- “A: correspondence in terminal sounds of units of composition or utterance (as two or more words or lines of verse) B: one of two or more words thus corresponding in sound” (Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 10th Ed.)

The word rhyme comes not from French rime or Latin rhythmus, as many suspect, but from the earlier Greek rhythmos, which is also the origin of the word rhythm. Some scholars would have you believe that it should be spelled rime after the French, because, they say, it is the closest related word to the actual definition. However, though many English forms of poetry are descended from the French 13th century, the actual heritage of the word traces back thousands of years before the French put it into practice.

Categories Of Rhyme

There are quite literally hundreds of thousands of rhyming words in the English language. That can make for an immense range of sounds, all of which can be chosen for a particular theme or mood, giving the poet an immeasurable wealth of possibilities. In the course of Poetry’s history, rhyme has come to be segmented into several categories. These include the types of rhymes, perfect or imperfect, and the placings of rhymes, like leonine and cross-rhymes. As well as being sounds or syllables that echo, a rhyme can be a link between consonants or vowels, like alliteration or assonance, respectively.

Alliteration And Assonance

Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds on accented syllables twice or more in a line of verse. It is not dependent, as commonly thought, on the first letters of a word, but rather on the syllable where the stress falls in the word. Sometimes it is hard to determine whether a poet is intentionally using alliteration to provide extra strength to the connotations of sound. However, with the proper eye for it, it can be found in places where alliteration may be subtle enough to not seem to be used at all. Here is an example from Jewel Kilcher, singer/songstress/poet, from a segment of free verse called ‘You’:

“. . . Hooked upon the pinnacle
    of a desire
that arrests
    itself,
caught on the crosswires
    of what could be, . . .”

Here, we must notice the word ‘hooked’, because it provides the initial connotation of the sounds in the next few words with the pronunciations of P and C. For P it provides the sense of hanging from the pinnacle as if with curled fingers to a precipice, while with C it concludes the thought and the mood by coinciding with the stresses in the words in a harsh or almost abrasive way, reinforcing in the reader the precious indecision of that desire in ‘what could be’.

Assonance is the repetition or vocal similarity of vowels or combinations of vowels in one or more line of verse. This is usually a much less intentional occurrence, sometimes not even thought about by some poets. However, others maintain the flow of sound and verse by actually thinking of how to make the entire work sound goodly appropriate. Such is the case in E. B. White’s opening lines to his poem ‘Harper To Mifflin To Chance’:

“Come Harper, come Schuster, come Appleton all,
The winter is coming, and gone is the fall,
The authors are restless . . .”

It’s obvious when you pay attention that come, all, coming, gone, fall, and authors all have that open mouth quality. It may not be so obvious as to why, but Harper, Schuster, and Appleton are book publishers who were losing the loyalty of their writers at the time of this writing, so the open quality of those first few sounds lends to the sense of that unfolding. In spite of the satire found in this poem, these sounds aid in creating an ominous tone, which in turn also denotes the irony of the material.

Perfect Rhymes

When a rhyme matches almost every letter in the words used, then it is considered a perfect rhyme. This is because either the sound matches perfectly or the spellings do. Let’s take some common words like day, play, stray, May. These are perfect rhymes because of their similarity in sound and end-spelling.

There are other forms of rhyme that are considered perfect for their sound, such as rich rhymes, or for their spelling, like eye-rhymes. These are considered perfect rhymes because their differences do not offset their similarities enough to be called imperfect.

Imperfect Rhymes

An imperfect rhyme is one whose sound or spelling may be similar, but not enough to warrant an actually true congruence. Most imperfect rhymes are dependent on sound only, while others depend on rearrangements of spelling or near-to-true similarities.

Rhyme Placings

There is more than just one way to rhyme in placings than just by using end-rhymes. While end-rhymes have been used and perfected for many centuries, many other rhyming orientations are available, such as beginning rhymes and linked rhymes. Perhaps the most encouraging way to expand your understanding of rhymes is to experiment with the many types of placings that are outlined below.

Flowing Sounds and Mood

As you can see, alliteration and assonance allow a poet to convey not only with particular wordings, but with flowing sounds that, when landing on stressed syllables, provide an extra way to create and sustain a mood. Alliteration should not be confused with head rhymes, because alliteration only depends on stressed syllables for their placing, as for L in “pleasant soliloquy”, or B in “bluebells and bumblebees.”

This can be confusing when the subtleties of some alliterations on unaccented syllables comes about, as in “amber harbours.” When this happens, it’s important to note the timing and number of occurrences in order to determine the exact effect the writer is trying to convey. In other words, sometimes a subtlety can make the difference in attaining the worthiness of the alliteration label.

Mood is particularly important in creating an effect that not only resonates with timely sounds, but also helps to bring out the shades of meaning and emotion. Most poetry is meant to be very aural. So, it helps to understand the basics of sound flow. If too much variety of sound is used, the piece can become very raucous or unintentionally ironic in nature. Pay attention to the assonance and alliteration in your pieces and eliminate any extreme variances. Do away with any sounds that go against your mood. If you are writing about a gentle sunset, for instance, you won’t want to use too many harsh consonant sounds, and most of your vowel sounds will be slight and match fairly well with each other. Your rhymes will reflect this as well.

Rhyme-Reason

Let’s think about rhyme for a minute before we get into the different styles. First let’s think about how many rhymes there are. As I mentioned above, there are hundreds of thousands of rhymes in the English language. Sound impossible? Look back through these last few sentences and think about it for a moment and come up with a couple true rhymes for each word. There are some easy ones, like think, before, get, how, above, last, sound, etc. But there are also some harder ones to think of rhymes for, like different, styles, let’s, mention, English, and yet even tougher ones like minute, a, into, rhyme, there, for, and language. It’s hard to rhyme these words without veering from a full rhyme, but sometimes it can be done with a little resourcefulness. Thyme and enzyme are probably the only words that rhyme perfectly with rhyme. Rhyming time with rhyme is an imperfect rhyme (not to mention too common) that depends on a similarity in sound only. It’s a form of assonance or sound rhyme.

Many poets, beginner and professional alike, tend to stick to rhymes that are common. Perhaps it’s out of a semi-conscious effort to ‘play it safe’ or to be overly simple or understood. Maybe it’s even because it’s deliberately saying: look at me, I’m rhyming, I’m a poet. Or, there’s a possibility it’s because at some level, the poet wants to be viewed as common, so in an effort to use rhymes that are obvious to everyone, they can be readily taken on as having a grasp of the English language. However, with such attitudes lies a lack of interest in the poetry itself, and, because of these, the poetry loses the splendor it could have. With this discomposed sense of being for the poetry itself, the poet may gain on the popular side, or on the plain side, but may lose on the depth of appreciation side, and even on the understanding of poetics.

This is not to say that all poets who use common rhymes share in these feelings, only that, in being common there is little room left for ennobled thought. To be poetic is to be expressive of ennobled thought. So, I challenge everyone who reads this to go beyond the norm when it comes to rhymes. I challenge everyone to be resourceful in using rhyme and writing poetry.

I would also challenge anyone reading this to use as many Full or True rhymes as possible, indeed, to use only such perfect rhymes will prove not only that you can write in rhymes, but that you’ve put some thought into your poems. This challenge is not meant to show that perfect are better than imperfect rhymes, but that they have a more rich texture to add to the writing.

Types Of Rhyme: Perfect

• Masculine rhymes are the most common. Most masculine rhymes are single syllable words that have different consonant beginnings but end the same and fall on a metrical stress. Link/brink/sink or health/wealth or breath/death or new/pew can all be considered perfect masculine rhymes. Some less popular masculine rhymes have two syllables in which the last syllable is stressed and ends the same. For a perfect masculine rhyme with two syllables, the last syllable must be exactly the same and the first syllable must be at least partially the same. Resent/present or event/prevent or belief/relief are good examples.
• Feminine rhymes are almost as common as masculine ones. A feminine rhyme consists of two syllables where the accent or stress falls on the first. Combat/wombat or suffer/buffer are examples of perfect feminine rhymes. Many poets have favored alternating between feminine and masculine ones, as in boat/haven/moat/raven.
• Triple rhymes (sometimes called dactylic, but not necessarily dependent on stress) are less common because they involve three consecutive syllables that rhyme. Clarity/rarity or annuity/ingenuity or  are examples of perfect triple rhymes. See also mosaic rhyme.
• Full or True rhymes are another way to call a rhyme perfect. It is also sometimes called a Pure rhyme. It doesn’t matter how many syllables are involved, as long as the syllables that rhyme end in exactly the same way as with chilly/filly or horse/gorse or board/hoard or vanity/sanity.
• Identical rhymes are rhymes that use the same word in similar context as in light/light or single/single or present/present.
• Eye-Rhymes or Sight rhymes are rhymes that look the same but are pronounced differently as in brood/good or drove/love or innate/fortunate. In spite of what some scholars say, this is a type of perfect rhyme because the endings of these words are spelled perfectly the same.
• Rich rhymes are two or more words that sound exactly the same but have different meanings. Homonyms such as to, too, two, and pear, pair fall into this category.
• Macaronic rhymes are rhymes that involve the use of words from other languages, as in pret/vet or hasta/pasta or vice versa/Aversa. The most common languages used in matching with English are French, Spanish and Itallian.
• Word-Play or Mosaic rhymes are two or three word combinations that rhyme together, as in that test/cat blest or city street/kitty feet. Many limericks, nonsense verses, and tongue twisters employ the use of word-play. Triolets rely on word-play as well, for they are dependent on clever turns of thought.

Types Of Rhyme: Imperfect

• Amphisbaenic rhyme is a type of reversed rhyme, as in trot/tort or on/no or dew/wed.
• Antisthecon or Wrenched rhymes are created by distorting a word or phrase, as in Samoa/some more of in the limerick “An old maid in the land of Aloha.”
• Assonant or Sound rhymes. As a poet, I’m not sure I understand the reason for the separation by some poets from assonance to sound rhyme. The terms interminably have the same definition. For more on assonance look above in the self-titled section. Some common sound rhymes are I/sky, new/you, fair/dare, rhyme/time.
• Consonant or Pararhyme or Apohany rhymes are those in which the consonants of the two rhyming syllables (one-syllable words or the stressed syllable of multi-syllable words) are exactly the same, but the vowels are different, as in tell/till or until/intel or trilocs/lilacs.
• Slant or Oblique rhymes are similar in sound, but are rhymes only by a stretched angle, as in weird/fear or word/world or teeth/breathe.
• Holo-rhyme (French – holorime) is a rich rhyme used throughout an entire line of verse where the words used are interchanged with others that sound exactly the same yet, may have an entirely different context. An example would be:

“Daring apes send offal all flyin’ toward ensigns.
Darren gapes and I feel awful eyein’ two wardens’ sins.”

• Head rhymes, Initial rhymes, or Sprung rhymes are not really rhymes in the conventional sense, but are based on similarities in which the first consonants (and once in awhile the first vowels) match, but the rest of the words don’t, as in barrel/barren or bring/bright, or chase/churl. This is not to be confused with alliteration. For more on alliteration
• Half-rhymes or Off-rhymes are also not really rhymes in the conventional sense, but are ones in which the last consonants (and once in awhile the last vowels) match, but the rest of the words don’t, as in trance/since or slant/bent or laugh/rough. Try not to confuse this with the slant rhyme or the sound rhyme.
• Semi-rhyme, Apocopated or Light Line rhyme is a type of rhyme that matches a one syllable word to a syllable of a two- or three- syllable word, as in mat/combat or blink/sinking or due/truly.
• Wrenched stress rhymes are very similar, but these match stressed syllables with unstressed ones, as in wing/dueling or pen/open.
• Synthetic rhyme is used often in limericks and light verse and is based on forcing the sounds of words into other spellings or vice versa: “Frank & Schuster/ ain’t what yer uster.”

Types of Rhyme: Usage

• Monorhyme is a way to describe the use of only one rhyme throughout a stanza or an entire poem.
• Duorhyme in the same way describes the use of only two rhymes throughout a longer stanza or entire poem. Duorhyme doesn’t necessarily point to stanzas or poems of 4 lines or less, but more to 8 lines or more.

Types Of Rhyme: Placing

• Scarce rhymes are just that—scarce! This term applies to poems where very few rhymes are used and half or more of the lines are skipped.
• End-rhymes are the most commonly placed rhymes, and happen at the end of a line of verse.
• Beginning rhymes are not so common. These are placed at the beginning of lines of verse.

“Bring the clouds,
swing them wide.”

• Internal rhymes are placed within a single line of verse and do not require any caesura or punctuation to denote their effect or placing.

“The recent rains have swollen drains.”

• Leonine rhymes are a type of internal rhyme with punctuation. “Today, I say; this is the day.”
• Linked rhymes link the end of one line with the beginning of the next, so that during the reading there are two consecutive words that rhyme;

“I paid the fine;
nine hundred dimes
times ten…”

• Broken, or Split rhymes are the separation of a longer word in a previous line to rhyme with another in the next or vice versa.

“I sat upon the brink,
and then I started think-
ing; boy, I need a drink.”

• Cross-rhyme happens when an end-rhyme or beginning rhyme rhymes with a leonine or internal rhyme, or when two internal rhymes in consecutive lines match.

“I took a look,
and saw a book within a nook.
I dropped my jaw when awe forsook.
‘You crook! You took
the book of law.’”

• Tail rhyme or Rime Couee happens at the end of a stanza or poem in which a usually closing short line rhymes with a previous short line and is sometimes separated from it by longer lines. Many French forms of poems end this way, like the rondeau, rondelet, and triolet.

Conclusions

Over the centuries, not all poets held to the idea that a poem must have rhyme to be such. There were a few who viewed rhyme as perhaps too restrictive. These are the ones who created or progressed other forms like the blank verse, blank poem, and free verse. While rhyme may be a difficult thing to master I prefer to take the same stance that is taken by W. H. Auden in The Dyer’s Hand:

Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.

While some see rhyming as restrictive, others see it as an opportunity. What kind of opportunity, you ask? An opportunity to explore the world of poetry, and to prove to oneself that rhyme is not restrictive, but eye-opening, not limiting, but unfettering. Let yourself be taken by the millions of possibilities into a realm where poetry is not seen as traditional but as varied and observant.

Don’t forget to check out the other parts to this series:

• World Of Poetry 1: Four Elements, Three Divisions
• World Of Poetry 2: The Free Verse
• World Of Poetry 3: The Free Form
• World Of Poetry 4: The Poem

Other articles by Adam Henry Sears:

• Writer’s Block: Let’s Deal With It #2
• Self-Editing Made Easy
• If You’re Going To Write, Read, Read, Read