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Rhyming is Fundamental

 

I'm no great Rhymin' Simon, and make lots of 'mistakes' that would cause academics to wag boney fingers at my poetry night and day, but I do know something about the basics. I thought I'd share some information and thoughts on how you can be more comfortable making your own rhymes.

I'm not going to present these ideas in a 'right or wrong' method. Rules exist to be broken, but artistry means you know what you are breaking and do it deliberately.

No, what I want to give you are some guidelines and explain the concept of 'a natural' rhyme, that is a rhyme which sounds comfortable to the ear. 'Forced' rhymes can have a place too, but there is a difference, and should be used when dissonance is required in a poem, or when the sounds are close enough that they can slide by unnoticed.

 

The Basics:

 

Types of Natural Rhymes –

 

1) Perfect Rhyme:

So, first question to ask is, where inside of the word do I start the rhyme? The answer is, on a vowel sound.

Perfect rhymes use both the same vowel sounds AND the same number of syllables. For example: bring, sing, ding, fling, Ming, etc. all start the rhyme on the "ing" sound, and all have only one syllable.

That's easy enough when you have only one vowel to worry about, but the same form can hold true for any number of sounds within the word, as long as the rhyming starts on the same vowel sound every time. Thus: marrying, tarrying, burying, carrying, etc. are all perfect rhymes because the rhyming starts with the "ary" sound, not the "ing." Get it?

It's considered bad form to try and rhyme bring with marrying.

 

2) Near-perfect rhymes:

These are word combinations where the natural accent on the vowel sound makes them 'perfect,' except the two words have differing syllable counts. This type of rhyme is arguably the most useful for building depth and complexity to one's poem or lyrics, but the combination must sound easy to the ear. Put another way, the two words selected must sound like a natural pairing to be considered like they belong together. Of course, this is an subjective matter of taste. The following are some combinations from one well-known poet as he actually published them.

Examples: roses, discloses; year, appear; mind, behind; here, uprear; other, smother; slide, abide; there, forebear (a random selection from Shakespeare's W.H. Sonnets)

 

 

Types of Forced Rhymes –

 

1) Eye Rhymes:

These are rhymes on paper only, but as long as these stay simple, and keep to the same number of syllables, then they can 'look' all right in your poem, but naturally loose effect if read out loud. You will find many examples of these in the generations of poets that include Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben. Jonson. It is often argued that words like prove really did rhyme with love in their day, but that's still not certain.

Examples: love, prove; aid, said; earth, hearth; wind, mind; etc.

 

2) Near-Rhymes:

In the opposite way of Eye Rhymes, these can 'sound' all right out loud, but lose effect when seen printed on the page.

Examples: Shuttle, scuttled;

 

3) Consonant Rhymes:

Striven and seven are examples of consonant rhymes, for although the 'natural rhyme' wants to rhyme starting with the first vowel of the word, they do not match. The second beat of both words is the comfortable place for the stress, and can form a consonant rhyme: stri-VEN, se-VEN. There are lots of words that can be rhymed in this manner, but it's important to always rhyme at the place in the word where the natural stress is going to occur. Thus, English and ticklish (en-GleSH and TICK-lish) are not quite there.

 

 

A Final Word on 'bad form' –

 

1) Same Word Rhymes:

Generally considered undesirable are ends of lines rhymed with a repeat of the same word, or even parts of the same word. Thus, some sticklers would not rhyme: come with become; gloved with begloved; round with merry-go-round; etc.

 

The next point is along the same line of thought.

 

2) Homonyms:

As poetry is sound based, words that are phonetically the same but spelled differently are also considered undesirable rhymes. So avoid word pairs like: queue, cue; so, sew; bear, bare; and so forth.

 

This is a very basic overview, so if you have more information to share, I invite you to post it in the comment section.

 

 

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