On Writing Poems that Rhyme

 

At a recent poetry reading, I read a poem that rhymed. The moderator, a local cultural arbiter, reacted  when I finished by saying rhyming a poem was rather controversial. This certainly sounded like public disapproval.

She got immediate polite pushback, however, from one attendedd: “then which side are you on?”

“I like all styles of poetry,” she demurred, “but it’s hard to get a rhyming poem published.”

I had nothing to say. She was undoubtedly correct, after all.

Other listeners, however, seemed to make a point of congratulating me on the poem, insisting they liked rhyme. 

“It’s easier to recite rhymed poetry properly,” one noted.

“It’s easier to remember too,” I added.

Why did the coordinator want to call it out?

Coleridge defined poetry well back at the end of the 18th century: “the best words in the best order.” Each word must come across as the only possible word in that place. This can be for the rhyme, the rhythm, for assonance, for alliteration, for onomatopoeia, or for any other conceivable sound effect; or to evoke a vivid image, to extend a metaphoric conceit, to express an emotion with an apt objective correlative, to make a punch line by reversing expectations, or to make a profound philosophical or psychological (in the true sense) point. Ideally, you want every word to do at least two of these things. Three or more is better.

Rhyme, it is true, has never been a requirement for poetry. Some of the greatest poems do not rhyme. Consider Donne’s sermon, “No Man Is an Island”:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

To be fair, there is some rhyme, but irregular. There is rhythm, alliteration, an extended metaphor.

But one justification for a word is that it forms a rhyme. In principle, a rhymed poem is superior to an unrhymed poem, because it gives the words one more purpose, one more element of symmetry and beauty.

It is also true that readers and audiences prefer rhyme. Robert W. Service is the most successful poet of all time, in terms of sales generated; his best-remembered poems have not just end rhymes, but internal rhymes. 

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but that man could play.

Of course, the cultural moderators scorn Service for this very reason: because he rhymed, and because he is popular.

Probably the most popular and successful living Canadian poet also rhymes: Dennis Lee. He gets away with it, presumably, because he writes for children:

Alligator pie! Alligator pie!
If I don’t get some, I think I’m gonna die!

According to Michael Posner’s detailed compilation of anecdotes, Leonard Cohen left poetry for songwriting because he was condemned by Louis Dudek for writing in rhyme. He saw there was no future for his passion for words in the poetry community. The joy of songwriting is that rhyme is permitted.

It may be no coincidence that songs, unlike poetry, are still popular.

Why then are the cultural arbiters openly hostile to rhyme?  

Because it takes great skill to write a good rhyme; and not just great skill. It takes a certain amount of inspiration. You rhyme badly, and it sounds inane: doggerel. This happens when the only reason for a word is to achieve a rhyme.

And so there is a natural pressure among professional or wannabe poets, to make their lives easier and their ambitions more attainable, to claim that rhyme is undesirable. Because inspiration can’t be taught, there is pressure on the Fine Arts departments to discount it, in favour of things they can teach the merely average student to do. 

Let these products of the academy or professional poets select for the publishers, as they do, and you get unpopular and mediocre art. Which is why poetry is now moribund.

Here’s a random current poem appearing in my Facebook Feed; selected as unusually good by the League of Canadian Poets:

 

It is more than decent prose; it has good images. But what makes it a poem, as distinct from a passage that might be found in a well-written novel?

There is no rhyme; there is no rhythm, no alliteration, no assonance. The images, while vivid, are not objective correlatives, serve no further purpose, and make no philosophical point. The topic seems trivial: these are not words that need to be said. “Catching the spins like commas” has some alliteration, but does not seem to mean anything. A spin does not really look like a comma. And the alliteration could have easily been better: “catching the curves like commas.” “These blasted rocks are laughing. Their jagged grins zipper shut as you drive by” is verbose. “Blasted” and “jagged” add nothing. “These rocks are laughing. Their grins zipper shut as you drive by” would be stronger.

While there are, I’d say unusually for most modern poetry, no cliches, except arguably for effect (“’A weekend escape,’ you tell yourselves.”) the entire format of interior monologue is itself an almost inescapable modern cliché.

Having nothing else to offer, there is among modern poets a temptation to grab attention by mere lurid detail. Here, the vulture eating the carcass of a raccoon. 

But this is an easy trick, a cheap thrill. Word porn. It gets boring fast.

We need somehow to get around the gatekeepers. My own idea is to create a poetry web page on which readers could vote for the poems they actually like best. With annual publication of the winners.