Zero to Hero, a Guide - 8. Essay Two: Rhyming is Fundamental

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Essay Two: 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, but I do know something about the basics. I thought I'd share information so you can be more comfortable making your own rhymes.

In fact, being a self-taught poet as I am, I wish someone had sat me down and laid out the general dos and don’ts. It would have saved me a lot of grief. So, I’ll attempt to give you the type of general outline I think would have served my needs when I was a young poet just starting out. 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.

Again, just like Metre, Rhyme is all about the sound(s). Keep that in mind.

Now 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?

2) Near-perfect rhymes:

So, what it called when you want to rhyme bring with marrying?

These are an example of 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 likely to belong together. Of course, this is an objective 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 break the fundamental rule about rhymes being sound-based. We’ve all heard songs where the singer ends a line with words like pain, sustain, remain, etc., but then rhymes it with again pronounced a-gen, and not a-gain. This is a rhyme on paper only, but as long as eye rhymes stay simple, and keep to the same number of syllables, then they can 'look' all right in your poem. They naturally loose effect if read out loud, but can pass if sung. 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 start 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: striv-VEN, sev-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 good example of a consonant rhyme: obligation/subjugation, for although the ‘ation’ part of both words are alike, they rhyme here because the natural stress occurs on the G sound.

A Final Word on 'bad form' –

1) Plural vs. Singular

No matter how much you want them to, “sales” and “dale” do not rhyme; the ‘s’ counts! Sorry to say it always does, however, in song lyrics it is more permissible to let it slide, assuming the singing can smooth out the non-conformity of the two sounds (one with an ‘s’ and one without).

2) 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. Again, with lyrics set to music, repetition is allowable and known as ‘refrain.’ Refrain can range from the repetition of the word at the end of a line, to an entire repeated line, or a whole stanza (which is then known as the ‘chorus’ of a song).

3) Homonyms:

Along the same line of thought as Same Word Rhymes, 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.

4) Be critical with yourself:

When editing your work, avoid the deceiving feeling that “It’s close enough.” If something does not rhyme, it does not rhyme. Forcing it is sometimes possible, but mostly it takes less time to give up on particular word you had in mind, and think of a better way to express your concept in the first place. It’s worth the time to do it right; trust me and my personal experience. Get it right now and your future self will thank you.

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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