Re: Help Please
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 7:36 pm
Hi Heather
Great poem! It’d make a terrific performance piece…complete with lots of dramatic action, of course. Leonie’s asked for a judge’s opinion, so here it is. (And anyone disagreeing…please feel free to argue.)
Yes, they are rhymes, and a rhyming dictionary will confirm them as such. I doubt that any judge would penalise their use. However, I understand your concern about the fact that they both end in “formed”. The question to ask with rhymes is: can it be done any better?
Within each group of rhyming words, some rhymes are better than others, and, if possible, it’s worth trying to avoid situations where the stressed syllables at the end of two (or more) rhyming lines are exactly the same. Not because it’s wrong, but because an alternative will most likely be stronger.
For example, in one of my poems you’ll find the lines:
No matter what I do as long as I might live,
you’ve said that we are through, that you cannot forgive.
Now they could have been written:
No matter what I do or how much I might give,
you’ve said that we are through, that you cannot forgive.
The second version isn’t wrong, but the fact that both lines end with a stress on “give” just doesn’t work as well. This idea can be extended. Here’s another example, using internal rhymes, where the stress isn’t on the final syllable. I wrote:
I am not alone in leaving, with my childhood friends perceiving
that their future on the land is looking bleak.
An alternative, again not as good for the same reason, would have been:
I am not alone in leaving, with my childhood friends believing
that their future on the land is looking bleak.
This adds another layer to the complexity of rhymes because I’m arguing that, even with accepted rhymes, there are still decisions to be made. Rhyming dictionaries should be treated with caution. For example, to (almost) borrow a word from your poem, if you’d used “boobs” in a rhyming situation a dictionary would have given you rhymes such as jubes, rubes, cubes and tubes. I agree with the first two, but not the last two. To be exact rhymes the last two would have to be pronounced coobs and toobs…and they’re not.
Cheers
David
Great poem! It’d make a terrific performance piece…complete with lots of dramatic action, of course. Leonie’s asked for a judge’s opinion, so here it is. (And anyone disagreeing…please feel free to argue.)
Yes, they are rhymes, and a rhyming dictionary will confirm them as such. I doubt that any judge would penalise their use. However, I understand your concern about the fact that they both end in “formed”. The question to ask with rhymes is: can it be done any better?
Within each group of rhyming words, some rhymes are better than others, and, if possible, it’s worth trying to avoid situations where the stressed syllables at the end of two (or more) rhyming lines are exactly the same. Not because it’s wrong, but because an alternative will most likely be stronger.
For example, in one of my poems you’ll find the lines:
No matter what I do as long as I might live,
you’ve said that we are through, that you cannot forgive.
Now they could have been written:
No matter what I do or how much I might give,
you’ve said that we are through, that you cannot forgive.
The second version isn’t wrong, but the fact that both lines end with a stress on “give” just doesn’t work as well. This idea can be extended. Here’s another example, using internal rhymes, where the stress isn’t on the final syllable. I wrote:
I am not alone in leaving, with my childhood friends perceiving
that their future on the land is looking bleak.
An alternative, again not as good for the same reason, would have been:
I am not alone in leaving, with my childhood friends believing
that their future on the land is looking bleak.
This adds another layer to the complexity of rhymes because I’m arguing that, even with accepted rhymes, there are still decisions to be made. Rhyming dictionaries should be treated with caution. For example, to (almost) borrow a word from your poem, if you’d used “boobs” in a rhyming situation a dictionary would have given you rhymes such as jubes, rubes, cubes and tubes. I agree with the first two, but not the last two. To be exact rhymes the last two would have to be pronounced coobs and toobs…and they’re not.
Cheers
David