Should Your Poetry Rhyme?

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  • Опубликовано: 1 дек 2024

Комментарии • 84

  • @jamessgian7691
    @jamessgian7691 3 месяца назад +61

    If your poem fails to rhyme,
    it may be good or bad.
    This poem didn’t take much time,
    because I didn’t feel like doing all the work of rhyming. But this may be the surest sign that it is a bad poem, not because the words stopped rhyming, but because I stopped working at it.
    Shall I start again? Work harder?
    If your poem fails to rhyme,
    it may be good or bad.
    This poem took a bit more time,
    but leaves me feeling glad.
    I took the time to find a rhyme
    that fits yet isn’t forced.
    And while free verse is not a crime,
    a lazy line’s the worst.

    • @anandbatra290
      @anandbatra290 3 месяца назад +3

      you put so much effort into this one comment and for what 7 likes

    • @kamikamen_official
      @kamikamen_official 2 месяца назад +5

      The frustration I felt at reading "because I stopped working at it" instead of "I stopped trying" is immeasurable.

    • @user-bf3yh6ue7p
      @user-bf3yh6ue7p 2 месяца назад

      beautiful comment!

    • @AdamTorkelson
      @AdamTorkelson 2 месяца назад

      If anything, this proves that rhyming doesn't make a bad poem good.

    • @Unamedblue3
      @Unamedblue3 Месяц назад

      ​@@AdamTorkelson certainly better than the original.

  • @JoelAdamson
    @JoelAdamson 2 месяца назад +4

    I'm interested in rhyme because I like metrical poetry. So much modern poetry isn't poetic at all because there are no restrictions. They just jam words together and speak them rhythmically even when the words don't call for it.

  • @Serai3
    @Serai3 3 месяца назад +35

    Rhyming is important because it takes discipline and patience. I've come across so much "poetry" that's really just fancily arranged prose, and it's not only unimpressive, it's boring.

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  3 месяца назад +11

      Ah, the curse of broken prose...

    • @AdamTorkelson
      @AdamTorkelson 2 месяца назад +4

      One could just as easily say that they have come across so much "poetry" that really just fancily arranged rhymes, it's not only unimpressive, it's boring. I think that's part of what the video is saying. Putting emphasis of your judgment of a poem by it's rhyming is a blunder for the ignorant.

    • @starbird14
      @starbird14 29 дней назад +1

      The problem is when writers overly rely on rhyme as a poetic element. Usually end rhyme.

    • @Serai3
      @Serai3 29 дней назад +2

      @@starbird14 How is that a "problem"? Sounds like it's more of a personal hangup for you. Rhyme is a powerful tool not only for structure but for memorability. Poets can use whatever tools they like in their work. Deal with it.

  • @mikesmithz
    @mikesmithz 3 месяца назад +15

    I think rhyme is one of the most important aspects of any writing, not just poetry, as the repeating sounds create the melody behind the words. The problem with rhyme, though, is that it's artificial. Meter has the same problem - it's not natural. The whole reason we don't like cliches is because they are not original thoughts or feelings, so the emotion behind cliches is forced, second hand, and artificial.
    So the real skill (at least for me) is to load the writing with as much hidden rhyme and repetition as possible. It has to stay below awareness though, otherwise the illusion is broken. You can't really escape how forced rhyme is because it's clear the word was chosen because it rhymes, not because of the meaning of the word. The same goes for meter - the words were selected because of the syllable stresses, not because of their meaning.
    All the writing I admire is chock full of rhyme and repetition, but it is so well hidden behind the words that you can only find it if you really analyze the heck out of the writing. The ear picks up on it immediately; the real trick is hiding it from the brain. Forced rhymes, concrete meter, and second hand cliches are the Splenda of poems; artificial and forced, and if they are spotted by the reader, it takes you right out of the poem. It's like watching a movie and being engrossed in the story, when suddenly you see a boom mic enter the frame, or you spot the reflection of a camera man in the mirror. The whole thing just collapses.

    • @apoet-y6c
      @apoet-y6c 3 месяца назад +1

      Meter, though, I don't think gets in the way if it's done well so as to be secondary to content. If it's being read, then the way the reader recites it can make the rhythm more or less subtle, so knowing how to avoid letting meter get in the way while reciting is important. And meter can be very useful for changing the mood of a poem. I like it, but it's not necessary.

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  3 месяца назад +5

      That's not a terrible way to think about it. I've heard people talk about "disguising" a form in order to avoid that artificial, mic-in-the-frame feeling. How much better, though, to choose a word that rhymes and means the right thing? There's a tension, to be sure, but it's not an either/or

    • @mikesmithz
      @mikesmithz 2 месяца назад +3

      @WritingwithAndrew there are so many other ways to rhyme that sound better than perfect rhymes. Assonance has to be the best way to connect words and provide a hidden melody. Alliteration is another good way to do this. Using phonemes from the same family of sounds, like fricatives, plosives and nasals. Or my favorite class of rhyme, family rhymes, where you keep the assonance from the word but change the last phoneme sound. In my opinion, I love lyrics or prose that keep tension by using these rhyming techniques, then at the right moment, hit you with a perfect rhyme. This works particularly well for song lyrics, where, for the verses, you can use assonance, saving the perfect rhymes for the uplifting chorus.

  • @TheThomNorth
    @TheThomNorth 2 месяца назад +2

    When you showed the words coloured differently according to their rhyme, I couldn't help but think of those rhyme scheme videos of rap verses on RUclips. This reminds me though, is there maybe a connection or a parallell between the evolution of hip hop and poetry? Especially in alternative hip hop, there is a large focus on not ending the thought on a rhyme, and playing around with rhyming structures. Earl Sweatshirt, MF Doom and Biggie especially come to mind when it comes to this way of writing.

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  2 месяца назад

      The short answer is that I'm sure there is! The slightly longer answer is that it's a little outside my wheelhouse (so don't quote me on the details!) 😅

  • @joelharris4399
    @joelharris4399 3 месяца назад +11

    It depends who you're writing for, the particular literary magazine. Frederick Seidel still uses rhyme schemes as part of his poetic signature. The magazines that publishes his work are usually the places reserved for established names like Seidel: The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, a boutique magazine that caters to university educated middle/ upper classes. Depends on the form being used too. The villanelle as an example incorporates rhyme in its stanzaic form. Rhyming is far from dead 🙂

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  3 месяца назад +6

      For sure, audience and context always matter. Rhyme's definitely not dead--but it's far from the default it used to be

  • @haku1145
    @haku1145 2 месяца назад +1

    There are always exceptions when it comes to art, and I'm still a complete novice at reading/writing poetry, but I think a good rule of thumb nowadays is that a poem's structure should match its language and theme.
    For example, a poem about confusion in one's search for identity, which uses raw and deeply emotional language, could do well with mismatched verses and odd spacing/capitalization/punctuation, as the sporadic structure can be great to amplify the theme of confusion and raw language.
    On the other hand, a poem about the simple beauty of a songbird, which uses picturesque descriptions and metaphors, would work wonders with clever rhyme and alliteration!
    Of course, the execution of structure is just as important as the choice. As you said in the video, picking words just for the sake of rhyming can cause dissonance, because words that are more appropriate to the poem's theme could be used instead.
    The constraint of structure is a double-edged sword, but using it well adds a wonderful, new layer of meaning to a poem.

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  2 месяца назад +1

      Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about it--form and content should work together as much as possible

  • @DyarContreras
    @DyarContreras 2 месяца назад +1

    This video reminds me of how there's a similar divide in modern underground music: prog rock and extreme metal tend to utilize free verse (or non-rhyming) lyrics, whereas nerdcore and alternative hip hop have some of the hardest bars of sick rhyme schemes that I've ever heard!
    Of course, there are exceptions to this rule; but as someone who dearly loves nearly all genres within both poetry and music, and somewhat understands their complicated histories; I salute all the inspired artists of the world, and their fans who keep them going!
    References: for the metal and rock artists, there are the bands The Faceless and Opeth; for the hip hop artists, there's MF Doom and Greydon Square.
    For my favorite poets: in the free verse tradition, there's Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, & Allen Ginsberg.
    For the poets who wrote in rhymed verse: Edgar Allen Poe, and that's about all I can remember at the moment...oh yeah, I also LOVE the rhyming poem, "Dulce et Decorum est" by Wilfred Owen, as well.
    Although I've written both (of my own, original) free verse and rhyming poetry, I feel much more comfortable writing in non-rhyming meter....I largely attribute that to myself only speaking English.
    Personally, I believe that a poet like Ezra Pound, who possessed a deep knowledge of multiple languages, could pull of deep, philosophical rhymed meter poetry like it was nothing....which is no small feat!
    So...if you want to get better at writing in rhymed verse, pick up a second language, and then drop bilingual knowledge bombs in your own, original poetry!
    Final observation: who would've thunk that over a hundred years after poets like Ezra Pound started pioneering imagist, English haiku; that that specific aesthetic would've been popularized en-masse by a website like Twitter....whose usefulness would ultimately be dragged down into the mud, and destroyed by Elon Musk....ugghh! What a spiritual assassin!

  • @SepulvedaBoulevard
    @SepulvedaBoulevard 3 месяца назад +2

    Discovering the poetry of EE Cummings was wonderful for me. Rhyme and meter out the window, and so much better for it🙂

    • @AdamTorkelson
      @AdamTorkelson 2 месяца назад

      see my replies below to David mg1yj. cummings did, in fact, rhyme at times,...and very well. Genius as always.

  • @jcKobeh
    @jcKobeh 2 месяца назад +1

    Lovely script. Looks like you had fun hiding secret rhymes in there. Doing this sort of meta- writing on the script because of the theme of the video is always appreciated

  • @DASBookbinding
    @DASBookbinding 2 месяца назад +1

    "Assonance - getting the rhyme wrong" (Rita). Remembering this line makes me want to watch the movie on the weekend.

  • @mcrumph
    @mcrumph 2 месяца назад +1

    I WILL have my enjambment! Look to Wordsworth. I know that they are rather archaic now, but I also really like Alexandrines. I would like to recommend Mary Kinzie's book, A Poet's Guide to Poetry. It really opened my eyes. & ears.

  • @hauthot287
    @hauthot287 3 месяца назад +1

    “I too transported by the mode offend,
    And while I meant to praise the must commend”
    Andrew Marvell

  • @DrGBhas
    @DrGBhas Месяц назад

    Poetry, like all art is always organizing and re- organizing our experiences of reality . I have published poems in journals such as Consilence ( which accepts many types of poems and themes at the interface of science and art), and what I have understood in the process is that it's the overall feeling and meaning of the poem -- the whole ideosphere of the poem that becomes vital to the reader and the poet. In this, I think the rhythmic quality of a poem also has a meaning of its own and is synergistic with the semantics and so on. Just like chiaruscuro in painting and the myriad techniques that one discovers in fine art. Vincent Van Gogh is very different from Salvador Dali because they have their own artistic rhythms which are depicted in their art.
    Similary, every poet has their own poetic rhythm which is expressed in their poetry. And artistic freedom is the most important thing in any art. If we focus too much on what readers like or dislike, then we are in some ways stifling our inner vision of a poem.

  • @mariusa.5863
    @mariusa.5863 2 месяца назад +2

    Short answer: yes.

  • @apoet-y6c
    @apoet-y6c 3 месяца назад +9

    May I ask why you are searching for a sublime lime?

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  3 месяца назад +5

      You may

    • @lightningninja6905
      @lightningninja6905 3 месяца назад +3

      ​@@WritingwithAndrew
      Yep, you're a teacher alright lol

    • @rafaelhpalomino
      @rafaelhpalomino 3 месяца назад +3

      He's searching for a sublime
      Lime
      'Cause it rhymes.
      Hope I clarified.

  • @kendalljones99
    @kendalljones99 3 месяца назад +3

    I'd love to know who some of your favorite lyricists are :)

  • @vulture9086
    @vulture9086 2 месяца назад +1

    Oooo. Love the blue background.

  • @tgstar8424
    @tgstar8424 3 месяца назад +3

    How quick I click on your video when I get your notification is alarming 😅

  • @ShuptahNeelakandan-cg4tn
    @ShuptahNeelakandan-cg4tn Месяц назад

    Thank u so much sir for this video😊 i think i will do well on my english project thanks to u😊

  • @johanngoode803
    @johanngoode803 2 месяца назад +3

    As a complete novice to poetry I find it very confusing and odd that rhyming would be anything but encouraged
    I am completely revealing my ignorance, but "forcing rhyming means you focus too hard on the rhyme and lose meaning" seems, to me, "scapegoatish" -- like surely the fact of the original "lime-poem" being bad wasn't because it rhymed, but rather it didn't have an original meaning or it wasn't kept to.
    isn't it just prose, if you don't have some kind of rhyming scheme or structure to your poem?
    genuine thoughts and questions -- not trying to invoke anger (nor claim I know/understand better/more), just the ramblings of a completely ignorant but interested person

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  2 месяца назад +3

      They're good questions. With respect to meaning, I mean specifically the meanings of particular words: "chime" just doesn't mean the right thing for the context, so it's clearly only there to satisfy a rhyme. I think the problem is that rhyming is something that poems can do--not something they have to do--and newer poets sometimes think they have to rhyme, which ends up hurting other priorities like choosing words that have the right meaning. The prose/poetry difference is a slippery one, but the simple version is that prose is written in paragraphs and poetry (verse) is written in lines. You can organize lines around rhyme and meter, but many poets of the last hundred years or so have tried to find other ways to structure their poems

    • @johanngoode803
      @johanngoode803 2 месяца назад +2

      @@WritingwithAndrew
      Thank you for such a detailed reply! 🥰
      I will think through your response carefully
      Currently I still feel confused/sad as to why new poetry/poets would want to divorce themselves from rhyming ends and specific structure - seems something is gained from giving yourself constraints and managing to overcome and work within them
      But these opinions are probably due to my lack of experience with poetry as a whole, but specifically of more modern poetry
      Thanks again for your reply, means a lot!

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  2 месяца назад +1

      You bet!

  • @BritishBeachcomber
    @BritishBeachcomber 3 месяца назад +1

    That example particularly good. It wants to be a limerick but the meter is wrong.

  • @Mike-wr7om
    @Mike-wr7om 2 месяца назад +2

    No discussion of meter?

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  2 месяца назад +2

      Not in this one--it's a separate but related thing that I've talked about more in other videos

  • @RootlessNZ
    @RootlessNZ 2 месяца назад +1

    Po-et-ry
    Doesn't mean that much to me
    Still, I like to take my pen
    And write a little now and then

  • @Twisted_Logic
    @Twisted_Logic 2 месяца назад +2

    Everyone knows that alliteration is cooler anyway :P

  • @jerrypeters1157
    @jerrypeters1157 3 месяца назад +2

    Is the insertion of rhyme an insertion of rhythm?

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  3 месяца назад +3

      By itself, not usually, but it probably would be if it coincided with a change in the number of syllables and/or stresses

    • @konLVdon
      @konLVdon 3 месяца назад +1

      I write in a neolatin language and multisilabic rhymes, so I don't know if my experience is worth for answering you, but I tend to see the rhythm in the rhyming syllables repeating. there are some people (again, I don't tend to write in english) who can't write good rhymes because they used a verb like "paRAR" and they can't think of another iambic or anapestic word that rhymes without it being another verb

  • @Stephen-Fox
    @Stephen-Fox 2 месяца назад +1

    I think my main (and, probably, only) follow-up question would be... Why is criticism of end rhymes a criticism that seems to be levied at poetry and not other forms of verse such as song lyrics? It just feels weird that poetry is apparently 'old fashioned' if it uses end rhymes when I don't think I've ever heard someone suggest that songs that use end rhymes are old-fashioned (At least, that's not the reason that my musical taste is out of date.)

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  2 месяца назад +1

      It's a good question. I think the shortest answer is that songs and poetry tend to show up in different contexts, so they've accumulated different expectations over time. Literary poetry has probably diverged more from their shared origins

  • @なすびさま
    @なすびさま 2 месяца назад

    Hey, Andrew. Are you still accepting new writing submissions at this time?

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  2 месяца назад

      Yep, it's open on an ongoing basis for the time being

  • @zacnewford
    @zacnewford 3 месяца назад

    Wow what a clean shave bravo

  • @miloxlo5950
    @miloxlo5950 3 месяца назад +2

    Hi Andrew

  • @greenemonger
    @greenemonger 3 месяца назад

    In my opinion, most poetry today seems to be just prose written in verse form.

  • @qasimabrar21122
    @qasimabrar21122 Месяц назад

    I am writing a poetry book composed of 100 different poems, all rhyming. I don't believe its poetry if it doesn't rhyme. Its a sentence or a story but not poetry if it doesnot rhyme.
    "As I went up the stairs
    I met a man who wasn't there
    He wasn't there again today
    I wish I wish he'd go away" is poetry
    "As I went up the stairs, I saw a figure that was not present. His absence was felt today as well when he shadowed over me." these are sentences not parts of poetry. At least that's what I believe.

    • @AdamTorkelson
      @AdamTorkelson Месяц назад

      @theulkaz both of the poems you wrote are bad for different reasons. The rhyming one isn't helped at all by the rhyme. It's still a terrible poem.

    • @qasimabrar21122
      @qasimabrar21122 Месяц назад +1

      @@AdamTorkelson that's an opinion. I respect all opinions. 👍🏻

    • @AdamTorkelson
      @AdamTorkelson Месяц назад +1

      @theulkaz yes, but keep in mind that not all opinions carry the same weight. There are expert opinions that are well informed. If you were a viticulturist for example, you would value a sommelier opinion over a college students opinion who only experience with wine is to get drunk on weekends on $3 bottles.

    • @qasimabrar21122
      @qasimabrar21122 Месяц назад

      @@AdamTorkelson checkmate

    • @AdamTorkelson
      @AdamTorkelson Месяц назад

      @theulkaz oh, I forgot to tell you this before, but rhyming in english poetry is only a relatively modern trait. Prior to the Arabic influence in Spain in the late middle ages, English poetry did not rhyme. Arabic poetry had been rhyming for almost an entire millennia before the Latin languages did. You may read wikipedia or Google the history of rhyming poetry. Also, you do not get to decide for the whole world what is and isn't poetry.

  • @Epic501
    @Epic501 13 дней назад

    "contemporary poets typically"
    "modern tastes tend to"
    What if I think contemporary poets are largely self-important midwits and I dont have modern tastes? What about the future?
    Adding random line breaks to an edgy or 2deep3me toilet tweet doesn't result in a poem.
    That's infinitely less sincere than a romantic ballad.
    I don't see any equivalence between current popular poets and Pound

  • @4rumani
    @4rumani 3 месяца назад

    That's not what constructive interference is. And two speakers are not twice as loud as one...

    • @WritingwithAndrew
      @WritingwithAndrew  3 месяца назад +6

      What else do we call the "adding up" of amplitudes of waves in phase (whether they're sound from a speaker or not)? Poke any metaphor hard enough and it falls apart--but it's the larger point that matters