Unanswered

[Wazza]

Hi to all ... I've noticed that the poets on this forum write predominantly unrhymed verse. I've tried that in the past and except for a couple of pieces that I thought weren't too bad, the others were very ordinary and that's being kind. I checked with one of your administrators who assured me that rhyming poems were acceptable, so in the main, that is the genre I'll be posting.
Thanks ... Wazza


Unanswered

What happens to the laughter
that brings music to my soul?
Does its echo live for ever,
or wither in the cold

of a sister’s cruel affliction;
a lover’s broken heart;
an old man unremembered;
a family torn apart?

What happens to my thinking
when I give myself to sleep?
Are my thoughts alive and waiting
to be dredged from places deep?

Do promises I fail to keep
bed down with lies I’ve told;
with thanks ungiven, friends ignored
and rights I don’t uphold?

And yesterdays …where do they go
when each day brings new dawn?
And where are all tomorrows kept
while waiting to be born?

Where does goodness come from,
and holiness and love?
The charity and kindness
we need that measure of?

And does there dwell within the heart
of every living man,
the promise to attempt to do
the very best he can

to make the most of what his God
has bountifully stored
in each and every one of us;
the promise – the reward.

And when my memory of a poem,
and all the words that once did roam
through thoughts and dreams is lost to me,
will they still live? Will they still be?

Will they still yearn for, reach for,
a reason to be born?
Or will they lie unheralded,
Unread, unknown, unmourned?

[Antcliff]

Indeed, Wazza, we have no objection to rhyming as such. You are more than welcome to do so.

But there are familiar failings of the would-be rhymer. One is the "inversion for the rhyme", where the word order has obviously been changed from what it would be in English just to fit the rhyme scheme. As in here...

What happens to my thinking
when I give myself to sleep?
Are my thoughts alive and waiting
to be dredged from places deep?

Do you order a "deep pan pizza" or a "pan pizza deep"? Surely it is "deep places"? Try to avoid obvious inversions like that. People who read and write poetry tend to turn the page at the first sight of it.

And try to avoid old fashioned/Victorian ways of talking that went out of use generations ago (if they ever were in general use)....used because they sound a bit "poetic"--

all the words that once did roam

is surely

all the words that once roamed

Hope this helps at least a little.

Best wishes,
Seth

[Wazza]

Thanks for responding Seth, but I think you’ve been a bit harsh. Your comment familiar failings of the would-be rhymer is really rather condescending and your pan pizza deep example is just plain silly. Look … I do understand inversion as a technique used in poetry and to a lesser extent prose, as a literary trick favoured by writers of old, but its occasional use can be found still, in contemporary writings. I don’t have a problem with your observations Seth, only the way you expressed them.
Cheers … Wazza

[Ros]

Hi Wazza,

May be it's just more the style of modern poetry, but I think people tend to be moved more by the personal - so

Where does goodness come from,
and holiness and love?
The charity and kindness
we need that measure of?

while heartfelt, doesn't really give me anything new to think about or touch me personally. People often say avoid abstractions like kindness and love, and show it instead through a particular person or action. You've got a good grasp of rhythm and of rhyme - the challenge, for contemporary poetry, is to make it sound pretty much like natural speech rhythms and to find a new angle on the traditional thoughts about love, etc.

Ros

[Ros]

Cross-posting with your answer there, Wazza. Tone of reply is difficult to express over the internet, so I'd always assume good intent rather than any attempt to offend. Have you read any Michael Longley? His style might appeal to you.

Ros

[Wazza]

Thanks Ros, that's fair enough comment. I've made a note of it in my writing folder and will look closely at my love life in future writing.
Be well ... Wazza

[Wazza]

No I haven't read anything by Longley Ros. Into my folder go I again.
Wazza

[Ros]

Oh, and try some of David's poems, here. He doesn't tend to rhyme but he does a great iambic pentameter.

Ros

[ray miller]

Hello Wazza. Nothing wrong with rhyme, but I think it's rule 48 in the PG Handbook that says you can't just change the rhyme-scheme in the penultimate stanza and expect to get away with it. The rhymes are a bit pat for my liking and I'd have preferred specifics to the rhetorical, which is what I thought might follow this verse, but unfortunately not.

of a sister’s cruel affliction;
a lover’s broken heart;
an old man unremembered;
a family torn apart?

[Wazza]

Thank you Ray. You know, I hadn't even realized that I'd changed the rhyme scheme in that stanza. Might go back to it Later.
Thanks again,
Wazza

[Macavity]

k-j likes to structure a poem around rhyme

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19710&p=162418#p162418

his tips on rhymimg -

However, kudos for giving the rhyme a shot. Here are a few tips to get it sounding a bit more natural or unforced (all personal opinion and may be nonsense to others):

- Use a(n online) rhyming dictionary to make sure you're picking from the full pool of rhymes. Remember that rhyming dictonaries don't include all possible rhymes, so use your brain too. Use onelook.com to search for words ending in specified letter-strings. Don't neglect proper nouns. Before proceeding I make sure I have a list of all possible rhymes, narrowed down to those which might make sense in the context.

- Take a risk and include a tough rhyme, a word with only a few rhymes in English. This shows panache. Even better, use an "unrhymable" word like "chimney". You can then go mad with a rhyme like "women he" or "simony" (although they're not perfect). Obviously this is much harder if you need four rhymes than if you only need two.

- Don't be afraid to let the rhyme guide your poem. Often I see a rhyme I'm dying to use and will alter the direction, or even the whole subject/theme, of the poem in order to include it. But hide your tracks if you do this!

- Rhyme different spellings. This is where you can get creative in English in a way Spanish, Italian etc. don't so much allow. I can't explain why but as a reader I get excited when I see "time" rhymed with "I'm", "climb", "rhyme" rather than with "slime".

- Try rhyming different parts of speech and tenses - mix verbs, nouns, participles, adjectives etc. Where the rhyme-words in a poem are all nouns they tend to stick out more and are more likely to sound contrived.

- Plan the poem thoroughly. Working backwards is often easier for me. A sign that you've started at the start and just written to the end is if the second rhyming word of each pair is the more contrived-sounding of the two. Upset this perception by deliberately making the first rhyme-word the more unexpected. For example if you know that line 4 is going to end with a common word, e.g. "blue", try "slew" or "imbue" for line 2 rather than e.g. "clue" or "you".

Keep trying. Rhyme is fun and immensely satisfying when it clicks into place.

[KevJ]

Well I found this quite moving Wazza and wasn't unduly perturbed by the inversion for the rhyming scheme. looking forward to reading more of your work here.

Kev

[Antcliff]

Hi Wazza

Your comment on the familiar failings of the would-be rhymer is really rather condescending and your pan pizza deep example is just plain silly.

Yes, the deep pan pizza analogy was rather funny I thought? It was silly, but that was because I was intended to illustrate the point in a light hearted way. After all, I did not know if you were familiar with the idea.

By talking of the "familiar failings of the would/be rhymer" I was trying to mention the point but also stress that it is something to be expected and so you should not get unduly upset. Everybody has done it. I have. Probably will do it again.

Anyway, welcome aboard.

Seth

[David]

Hi Wazza,

I think it's pretty good rhyming. The poem certainly rolls along rather jauntily, and I enjoyed reading it. Whether it's the right vehicle for such far-reaching questions is another matter, and one about which we can all hold different opinions. And there is a bit of a rhetorical question overload, but that's your choice.

I recall that I was an inveterate rhymer (and formalist) when I first stumbled into this place, quite a few years ago now, and when I finally managed to produce a half-decent piece of more or less free verse I was absurdly pleased with myself. I don't completely abjure the whole rhyming thing even now, though.

I look forward to reading more of your poems, if you look forward to posting them.

By the way, those are great rhyming tips from k-j - don't you think so? I don't remember seeing them before. He's particularly good at using rhyme with uneven line lengths. Have you tried that? Often works really well.

And I must admit that Seth's "deep" example appealed to me, on the very grounds of funny silliness that he mentions. It is quite funny, no?

Cheers

David

P.S.

Oh, and try some of David's poems, here. He doesn't tend to rhyme but he does a great iambic pentameter.

Thank you for that, Ros!

[Wazza]

Mac, thanks for posting k-j's tips. I've copied and saved them for reference.

Thanks Kev. Perhaps I'll have a look at rewriting to remove the inversion. But then again probably not. It's seen the light of day now so may just let it lie.

Hi Seth. All good mate. Thanks.

David ... I agree with you about k-j's tips and I'll look for others of his poems.

Cheers all,
Wazza

[Namyh]

wazza - With some creative editing, there is a lot of potential in this piece which I enjoyed. Namyh

[Wazza]

Be my guest Namyh. I don't mind a rewrite from a fellow poet.
Cheers ... Wazza

[ArcaneMind]

I like the rhyme style of poetry ,It's also how I write.
Some people like it while others do not ,It's no different than anything else on this ball of rock.
Nice poem by the way ,I look forward to reading some more of your poems.