ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

"he’d fabricate a life back when
his youthful dreams take flight again."

Is the rhyme when and again (agen) allowable or is it breaking a rule?

Thank you...Wazza.

Not what I would call a true rhyme Wazza

I would look to say what you want in another format.

He'd fabricate a past life when
youthful dreams took flight back then.


Depends on the rest of the verse really.


Bob

alongtimegone wrote: is it breaking a rule?

What rule ?

G'day Wazza

Perfectly acceptable as a rhyme. That pronunciation of 'again' is accepted in general speech and also appears in the dictionary. The only suggestion I would make if you are going to use it is to keep to that one pronunciation throughout the poem - if you have rhymed 'again' with 'when' as you have, make sure that you don't also rhyme 'again' with a word like 'plain' and you should be right.

Regards


John Peel

Hi Wazza

The only thing I'd add to John's comment is that it's helpful to the reader if you can make 'again' the second part of the rhyming pair...as in your example. Here, the use of 'when' anticipates the pronunciation of 'again'.

There are other, less common, words like this. 'Castle', for example, can rhyme with 'hassle' or 'parcel'. Then there's 'dance' and chance', which can rhyme with 'ants' or 'aunts'. There's a line in one of my poems which reads:

'When there's ants in your pants it's a crazy old dance...'

It conveys a completely different image and sound if the line is rewritten as:

'When there's aunts in your plants it's a crazy old dance...'

Cheers
David

And remember Wazza, that in Aussie lingo ;

These are perfect rhymes;

paddle-cattle
rumba- jumper
boy-why
goody-footy
annoyed-aside
fairy-very
bared-bread
isthmus-Christmas
mullah-fuller
Anna-spanner

Thank you everyone for your responses. The consensus seems to be that it's ok.
Thanks again,
Wazza

and...
I have seen a well known judge say "It's OK as long as you don't have 'again' rhyming with 'rain' in one stanza and
'when' in another stanza of the same poem."

Speaking of 'ants' and 'aunts', check out Roald Dahl's 'The Ant Eater', if you're not already familiar with it. Wonderful poem.

You can find it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0QAq9CvUOM