aj47
September 11th, 2016, 09:16 PM
I'm not a guru. I don't know much more than anyone else. This is something that I believe deeply though. Not all poetry rhymes or has meter. But if you're going to do it, do it right.
When we speak, we accent our words to fit their meaning and use. When we talk about a subject, we put the emphasis on the first syllable but when we subject someone to a rant about language, we stress the second syllable. This is important in writing rhythmic verse because we want to arrange the words such that the natural stresses from speaking them form a repeating pattern. The pattern can be simple or complex, the point is that the reader can feel and recognize it.
Hand-in-hand with rhythm is rhyme. Not all rhythmic verse rhymes but the vast majority does. This is traditional and the reason is, it's easy to remember. Poetry has a great oral tradition because of this.
But in order to be memorable and great, the poem needs to both sound good and make sense. This is where the idea of not forcing your rhymes comes from. I'm going to post a stanza of a poem and leave out some rhymes. See if you can figure out what goes there. You should be able to because the right words fit.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his ________;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet ________.
Maybe you didn't figure it was mail and unblown. But you probably didn't guess quail and trombone, either. Because those would have made no sense at all. Yet if someone couldn't think of mail to rhyme pale and only came up with quail they could rewrite that line to make something not-as-good. Something about how in his armor he'd quail, maybe. But you see the point. Fail might be a good next try. Or frail.
rhymezone.com is your friend. Don't get caught up in thinking you have to use a particular pair of words if you can't make a sensical pair of lines out of them. Sometimes rearranging the phrase gives you a more friendly word to rhyme with.
Remember that you're trying to communicate an idea and if you're torturing that idea, or the language, you're not doing it right.
When we speak, we accent our words to fit their meaning and use. When we talk about a subject, we put the emphasis on the first syllable but when we subject someone to a rant about language, we stress the second syllable. This is important in writing rhythmic verse because we want to arrange the words such that the natural stresses from speaking them form a repeating pattern. The pattern can be simple or complex, the point is that the reader can feel and recognize it.
Hand-in-hand with rhythm is rhyme. Not all rhythmic verse rhymes but the vast majority does. This is traditional and the reason is, it's easy to remember. Poetry has a great oral tradition because of this.
But in order to be memorable and great, the poem needs to both sound good and make sense. This is where the idea of not forcing your rhymes comes from. I'm going to post a stanza of a poem and leave out some rhymes. See if you can figure out what goes there. You should be able to because the right words fit.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his ________;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet ________.
Maybe you didn't figure it was mail and unblown. But you probably didn't guess quail and trombone, either. Because those would have made no sense at all. Yet if someone couldn't think of mail to rhyme pale and only came up with quail they could rewrite that line to make something not-as-good. Something about how in his armor he'd quail, maybe. But you see the point. Fail might be a good next try. Or frail.
rhymezone.com is your friend. Don't get caught up in thinking you have to use a particular pair of words if you can't make a sensical pair of lines out of them. Sometimes rearranging the phrase gives you a more friendly word to rhyme with.
Remember that you're trying to communicate an idea and if you're torturing that idea, or the language, you're not doing it right.