Techniques — Ellis Campbell, 1. Rhyme & Reason, 2. Rhyme
Ellis Campbell’s Writing Techniques — 1. Rhyme and Reason
The amazing resurgence of Performance Bush Poetry over the last few
years has worked wonders to restore a flagging art. A good performance
poem, however, is not necessarily a good written poem. Give a good
performer a poem that is funny — a little rude, even — and he/she can
stretch or cramp the stress and place the emphasis where needed to make
it flow and be hilariously entertaining.
Place
the same poem under bare scrutiny on a written page and the faults are
obvious. I believe both performance and written poetry have an
important part to play in this fascinating world of Bush Verse. Some
poets make a good job of both.
The
wonderful poetry of Paterson, Lawson and Ogilvie should not be allowed
to become a thing of the past. A number of poets across Australia are
making a valiant effort to keep this Bush Verse alive and up to a high
standard. Take a look at Veronica Weal’s Blackened Billy
winner in an
issue of the ABPA magazine, for example. What a pleasure it is to read.
Writing
and performing Bush Verse is my great love, but I regard it as two
different arts. Neither of my most successful performance poems (Beach
House Honeymoon and Luck Can Vary) have won a major award in written
competitions.
A few years ago I came up
with the idea of using the analogy of the human body to explain the
structure of Bush Verse. Content is the Body, Rhyme is the Heart and
Metre is the Soul. A person may have a perfect body but not be really
complete without a heart and soul, so it is with Bush Verse.
A
wonderful story does not make a good poem without good rhyme and metre.
The techniques I give are for the love of Bush Poetry and a desire to
help my
fellow poets. If anyone exploits my ideas through workshops etc. for
profit (without my express permission) I will be extremely
disappointed.
Ellis Campbell’s Writing Techniques — 2. Rhyme
As I mentioned above, Rhyme as the heart of good Bush Verse. It is very
much a natural part of Traditional Australian Poetry. Even a small
child might write “Jimmy Brown went to town” or
“A big cat chased a
rat”. That is good rhyming, but it is not so simple when one
has to
make it a natural part of the story being told and fit into the metre
pattern. I try hard to use perfect rhyme at all times and do my best to
avoid forced rhyme, half rhymes, sight rhymes or substitute assonance
for rhyme.
“A
drover rode his horse along the lane — and watched by people through
the window pane”, is perfect rhyming but poorly constructed
verse.
The
author has deviated from the story merely to get a rhyme. That is
forced rhyme. Write “The drover rode his horse along the lane
- and
cursed the driving wind and sleety rain”. We again have a
perfect rhyme
but now have better rhythm and sounds more natural.
Half
rhymes are ‘saddle’ and
‘cattle’ or ‘town’ and
‘around’ — some I often
see used. ‘Saddle’ rhymes with
‘addle’ — ‘straddle’ —
‘paddle’ etc;
while ‘cattle’ rhymes with
‘rattle’ — ‘prattle’ —
‘battle’ etc.
‘Town’ rhymes with
‘Brown’ — ‘gown’ —
‘renown’ etc. while ‘around’
rhymes with ‘ground’ — ‘sound’
- ‘abound’ etc.
Sight
rhymes are ‘bush’ and ‘hush’ or
‘town’ and ‘sown’ or
‘rough’ and
‘though’. They look the same to the eye but are
pronounced differently.
Some poets use these, but I prefer not to.
Another
doubtful one is words like ‘distribute’ —
‘repute’ . . . They look good
and I expect most poets would use them. But
‘disTRIBute’ has the stress
on the middle syllable while ‘rePUTE’ has it on the
last syllable. A
bit tricky?
Conversely words that do
not look alike can be perfect rhymes. For example
‘boot’ ‘brute’
‘fruit’. Or ‘fire’
‘choir’ ‘tyre’. Or
‘jaw’ — ‘bore’ —
‘claw’ — ‘floor’
or ‘pool’ — ‘cruel’ —
‘rule’.
Rhyming on
the weak stress is not usually successful but can be made work if it
follows a strong stress, e.g. ‘flowing’ —
‘mowing’ — or ‘racing’ —
‘chasing’ or ‘flying —
‘dying’. You can go one step farther and have
triple rhyme e.g. ‘thundering’ —
‘blundering’ or ‘beckoning’ —
‘reckoning’.
Or four if you like with
‘reflectively’ — ‘effectively’
- or ‘demonstrative’ —
‘remonstrative’.
Or five with words like ‘unconventional’ —
‘unintentional’. But one
needs to be fairly conversed in the art of poetry to try some of these.
Many confuse assonance with rhyme.
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds.
‘Sheep’- ‘wheat’ —
‘squeak’ have the same internal vowel sounds but
each ends with a
different letter. Likewise ‘squall’ —
‘squat’ — ‘squaw’ — or
‘pool’ —
‘shook’ — ‘door’.
Articles
- David Campbell —
From a Judge’s Desk - Glenny Palmer —
An Exercise in Writing Humour
“Unstrained Melody” writing tools - Ellis Campbell —
1. Rhyme and Reason
2. Rhyme
3. Metre
4. Pattern
5. Words
6. Poetic Terminology
7. Inverted Phrases
8. Don’t Make Your Poems Too Personal
9. Terminology
10. Importance of First Stanza
11. Metaphors and Similes
Finally...
But... - Noel Stallard —
Performance Tips