How to Rhyme Well
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Rhyme, Learning, Art, Creativity, Poetry

Of all the devices in the modern poet’s toolbox, rhyme seems to be one of the most controversial.

To some, it dates the poem. There’s a widespread belief that “old poetry rhymes, but new poetry doesn’t.” And while there’s a grain of truth in that free verse (that is, poetry without a set rhyme or metrical scheme) has grown in popularity over the last century or so, it’s fairly reductionist.

To borrow a sentiment from author John Green, the universe resists simplicity. So, too, does poetry.

There are modern poets who excel at rhyme and form (including, but definitely not limited to yours truly). Consider this sonnet from Karen Volkman:

Nothing was ever what it claimed to be,

the earth, blue egg, in its seeping shell

dispensing damage like a hollow hell

inchling weeping for a minor sea ticking its tidelets, x and y and z.

The blue beneficence we call and spell

and call blue heaven, the whiteblue well

of constant water, deepening a thee, a thou and who, touching every what —

and in the or, a shudder in the cut —

and that you are, blue mirror, only stare bluest blankness, whether in the where,

sheen that bleeds blue beauty we are taught

drowns and booms and vowels. I will not.

And there are poets of yore, especially those outside of the European sphere, who wrote in non-rhyming verse. Matsuo Bashō with his hokku (later called haiku) in the late 17th century is a good example.

uru ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto Within aging pond / frogs jumping vibrate the calm / water’s resonance

— trans. Sarah Isbell

Another is Cynewulf, a 9th century Anglo-Saxon poet. In fact, one of the major features of Anglo-Saxon poetry was less of a focus on rhyme, and more of a focus on consonance and assonance, repeating vowel and consonant sounds.

So while there is a correlation with more rhyming verse in the medieval European canon, it’s not entirely fair to say that “old poems rhyme” and leave it at that. But the European school has, over the years, started to shake off the rigid attitude toward form and rhyme being defining features of a poem.

Rhyme is simply out of vogue.

And it’s really not hard to understand why.

It’s easy to write objectively bad poetry that is made worse because of the rhymes.

Consider the following verse, written by yours truly, a long time ago:

Christmas day, landing at Charles de Gaulle (1)

Sorry, honey, it’s only a transfer (2)

We will not be seeing Paris at all (3)

This is part of the plan, it won’t deter (4) It’s been long since we’ve been on vacation (5)

You’ve never before needed such a long trip (6)

Lately, life has been strife, complication (7)

But I think that this will your fortune flip (8) We’re headed for Switzerland and the snow (9)

We’ve both lived in Cali so long (10)

I’ve a surprise for you; hope you don’t know (11)

I’m going to offer a gift life long (12) Once more, lovely fantasies touch my mind (13)

Never in my memory book shall they reside (14)

Obviously, there are some issues.

One of the most basic mistakes when it comes to writing rhyming poetry is wrenching the word order (syntax) so the rhyming word goes at the end of the line. Everything in the middle of the line gets shuffled around to accommodate, and you have some strange sounding sentences.

That’s happening here in lines 8, 12, and 14. Typically in English, your sentence is going to be in SVO (Subject, Verb, Object) order. When sentences aren’t in that order, they start to sound weird.

In line 8, the object of the sentence, your fortune, splits the verb phrase will flip. In line 12, the adjective life-long (which should be hyphenated) is after the noun it’s modifying, gift. Line 14 is all out of whack, with the subject they splitting the future tense verb shall reside, which is kicked to the end of the line, while its negator, Never, is still at the front.

In essence, the language is being butchered to preserve the rhyme scheme. And the poetry suffers for it.

Another issue is that this poem does not use enjambment. That is, each line is a complete clause, a complete idea. It’s the point in the sentence where you’d pause and take a break before continuing.

It’s the rhetorical equivalent of the ba-dum tiss! every time a comedian tells a joke or putting a big cymbal crash at the end of a phrase in a song. By placing all of the rhymes at the end of the clause, you draw even more attention to them.

The easy solution to this is to break your sentences across multiple lines. Have some sentences that end at the end of the line. End some halfway through the line. Even if the meter and the rhyme scheme are set, there are other ways to vary the rhythm of the poem that take the stress off of the end-line rhyme.

Ideally, in a poem, the rhyme scheme should disappear into the woodwork. Otherwise, you end up with a poem that sounds sing-songy and childish, in spite of the emotions that the verse itself is attempting to convey.

How would I rewrite that poem now? Somewhere along these lines:

A yuletide night and Paris, lit below,

is singing, siren to your poet’s heart.

Alas, my love, we’re passing through to go

where Edelweiss sings harmony, a part

of you is longing for the mountains, stress and tears

lost beneath the powdered white chalet;

the slopes may echo all those screams and fears —

it takes them to the wind, away, away! When grief is evanesced, love comes alight,

a holy fire burning in your chest

once tainted by carcinogens, now right;

your smile restored, so beautiful, the best

of you drawn out. Our better days shall come

beyond the work and grief that leaves us numb.

Notice how only a few of the sentences end at the end of the line. The thought continues onto the next line, driving the reader away from that point. They want the rest of the information — even if the line break is telling them to slow down for a second, readers intrinsically know that this isn’t the place to stop and reflect on the sentence: there’s still more information.

Also, since the sentences are of different lengths, they don’t have a monotonous feeling. Some of them span on for several lines, while others are fairly short.

The rhyme scheme is still present, but it’s definitely deemphasized. And that’s the entire secret to making it work. Another secret is also to use off rhymes or slant rhymes or even eye rhymes, but that’s a different lesson.

You can write poetry without rhyming.

Just the same way as you can build a house without ever using a nail gun.

But there’s no reason to ignore such a critical and useful tool, just because it’s difficult to use safely and correctly.

So start writing. Start rhyming. And then pick apart your rhymes to see if they work and how. That’s the only way you’re going to get better at it.