I ran across advice somewhere that said if you want to improve your prose, learn and practice poetry. I've delved into it a little bit, mostly just learning the basics of meter and foot, and had a blast on a certain Lyrical Challenge thread recently (where I burned myself out by writing like a dozen rhymes in an evening). More recently—as in earlier today—somebody 'round these parts mentioned learning why modern poetry doesn't rhyme (along with several other little gems that piqued my interest). So just now I did some searching on why modern poetry doesn't rhyme and ran across a couple of nice little pages. I'll list them here in case anyone else is interested: Everything You Need to Know about Rhyme Schemes in Poetry Ok, that's the only really good one actually. I always enjoy learning more about poetry, verse and rhyme. Now I want to look deeper into assonance, consonance, and a few other terms I ran across. I was already aware of internal rhyme, and in fact used it extensively in my little rap battle entries. But I know a lot less about half-rhymes, masculine and feminine rhymes, eye rhymes, and end rhymes. Time to remedy that. Does anyone know anything interesting concerning why modern poetry no longer rhymes (often)? It's the kind of thing you could read a hundred pages about and get three hundred different answers, but of course some answers are inherently more interesting or meaningful than others. In one sense of course it could be said that, like all modern art, it's simply abandoning the forms that always made it great, and so it's degenerating into utter garbage and chaos. But there are still mechanics at work in the better modern poetry, or at least a certain musicality. What kinds of things make modern free verse work?
Oh, forgot to say—one reason I understand poetry used to rhyme is because it was the way people remembered things before there was written language. They used poems and songs (poems set to music) to record their history, as a people and as families etc. All the various poetic devices (of which rhyme is one) served to make a story much more memorable, and memorize-able. Now of course that reason is no longer as important—we can record our histories in many different forms. But still poetry, verse and lyric have a pleasant sound that we like to hear or to read (and hear in our minds).
I see form poetry published all the time in literary journals. Maybe free verse or no verse is more popular, but, IMO, they still both have their space. I didn't read the article you linked because I rather read poetry than read about poetry. I did study some poetry in grad school. But they were more literature courses than writing classes. We would read several examples of a different kind of poetry each week, as well as some theory and history of the form. And part of the homework was alway to then write the form ourselves. The writing exercises were to experience the form. I will say this poetry course improved my writing. But I will also say that came from all the reading of poetry I did. What I learned most in that course was how to read poetry, which I still do just about every day.
Excellent advice, thank you. Yes, I believe you're right. It's definitely necessary to read poetry in order to learn about it. Pure theory alone just doesn't work. Actually I'm with Leonardo, who said: “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.” It goes both ways of course, and he explained this in his notebooks or wherever this comes from. Like a sailor you need both experience and theory, neither is sufficient alone. I'm afraid if I were to simply read poetry, much of what was happening would be completely lost on me—I'm definitely at a stage where I need to read some of the theory so I can appreciate these devices and techniques when I see them. I think I'll read a bunch of the poems linked on that page. And then I'll try my hand at writing some things as well.
See, I think a writer can do without the theory if they are well read in poetry. I mean I ended up reading more literary theory because I was in grad school. But it's only in spending actual time with poetry you get anything out of it. That's what I believe at least.
You're probably right. Ok, I know you're right, I picked up a lot about writing prose just from reading and writing quite a bit. It took me a couple of decades, but that's because I started when I was a kid, my brain had to finish growing in. But I didn't learn the names of anything, and I didn't necessarily learn it all thoroughly. In some cases I picked up parts of some things but not all. Like for instance I developed an intuitive grasp of showing and telling, but I didn't know it had a name, and when I got here and discovered that, I was able to quickly learn a lot of things about it that I sort of half-suspected but wasn't really clear on. Still though, it might be better to learn it this way than to begin with the theory, and run the risk of thinking what you were taught is all there is to it. That's a great danger, I've seen it happen to people including myself. Once you 'learn' something by rote, you can fall into believeing you know all there is to know on the subject and reject deeper or more subtle knowledge. It's that infamous arrogance of the conscious mind—the part that does the rote learning. The unconscious is far more subtle and flexible and picks up on things the conscious mind misses. But you have to listen to it—to the quiet inner voices. And training of the strictly conscious variety can shut you down to that.
I've now read and downloaded Whitman's I Sing the Body Electric. It's free verse, and apparently he was well-known for free verse. There's a very detailed study guide for it on the site I linked to above, I just clicked on his name and a few more links and found it. But I won't read the study guide for a while, instead I'll re-read the poem a few times and try to write something with similar rhythms and techniques. THEN I'll delve into the study guide. Thank you again @deadrats , I think this will prove to be a good approach. After some time, when I know a lot more about poetry, maybe I won't need study guides anymore. Or who knows, maybe I'll stop using them in a few days.
My head is spinning from reading it. First impression—it's got so much depth and sophistication it makes everything I've read for the last few years seem shallow and foolish by comparison. Just the sound of it—the subtle musicality of the lines and the rhythms of the words. That plus the profoundness of the ideas. Intense. Yes, you have to marinate in a poem. You soak in it and let it gradually work its magic. As I read somewhere once, you don't read a poem the way you read a story, it isn't so linear and rapid. Instead it presents a grouping of word-images, and after finishing it you can start to consider those images in their totality and build ideas from them. Their interconnections and contrasts etc. What's said, what's implied, what's left out. And what springs to your mind from you know not where (I was so tempted to write from whence or from wither). Yeah, and then you do want to write like that. I need to do some freewriting I think.
This has taken an unexpected (excellent) turn, but by all means, if anyone has anything to contribute about poetry, based on my questions above or not—knock yourself out. I was hoping the thread would take some unexpected turns. Or if anyone has questions of their own, ask away. Let's just explore it.
The problem is it's very difficult to have these kinds of conversations with people not up to speed with the poetry currently being published in well-known places. Just reading today's works you'll better understand the conversation you want to have.
I see your point, and contemporary poetry isn't exactly online waiting to be downloaded for the most part. But there are many conversations to be had, I want this to be a free-form thread where we just discuss, wherever parts of it may roam. The reason for poetry losing its rhyme (much of it anyway) was only one question to spark conversation, and I intend to ask many more. But I'll take some time and parse them out gradually, I don't want to dump a whole bunch of questions all at once. If the thread gets slow I'll probably pop in and ask a few more.
Blackbird is a pretty big deal. And they are only online. The Rattle is some stuff online. Same with Poetry Magazine. Even The New Yorker and the likes gives you a few reads a month. Basically, most literary journals have some sort of online presence that will allow you to check out their poetry. Poetry is out there. Let me also mention poets Elizabeth Bishop an Ezra Pound, both masters a complex poetry forms and much more. Definitely, two of my "teachers."
I should be careful of holding forth about poetry when I'm the only one on the thread so far with some poems in the workshop. If people don't agree with me, I may find myself pummelled. So I'll begin by deflecting as much blame as possible onto other parts of the internet:- This reddit thread has some good takes: In particular the one by 745o7 This other one about children's books lists the key points clearly: https://taralazar.com/2012/03/13/why-do-editors-say-not-to-write-in-rhyme/ == @Xoic, rhyming already wasn't needed for memory by the 1800s classic poets in the background of this problem. And lots of ancient oral epic didn't rhyme. It might even be the other way round and rhyming verse requires the culture to have dictionaries. Having a supernaturally-good memory was part and parcel of being a bard. Sometimes they composed the longest, most brain-twisting lists just to showcase the skill. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_catalogue) Or this example, which wasn't oral poetry but mocks it: Mabinogion, Culhwch and Olwen - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5160/5160-h/5160-h.htm#chap05 ; https://archive.org/details/TextOfTheMabinogion/page/n133/mode/2up. == But back to the OP and should poetry rhyme:- People have taken this to extremes: like the UK's children's laureate doing a poetry game in a school visit and deducting points from children whose poems rhymed. (https://inews.co.uk/culture/poetry-shouldnt-rhyme-waterstones-childrens-laureate-joseph-coelho-1715473) But I think the argument usually comes with an acknowledgement that sometimes poetry can rhyme. Unless I was very frustrated I think all I've suggested recently was for people to look at why it often doesn't. New words enter the language at a horrific rate - even the OED, which is very conservative, has hundreds of new entries per year. Each new word opens up thousands of new rhymes that weren't available to Keats and Byron. That might be part of why rhyming is still in fine fettle within rap lyrics. ("Weak MC's approach with slang that's dead") I don't think I like the phrase free-verse. Poetry is almost by definition an exercise in self-imposed constraints - since otherwise it would be prose. To think of non-rhyming poems as "free" verse imo invites readers to miss that they have adopted constraints other than rhyme. So it's subtly disparaging. Rhyming poetry is the subset in need of an extra descriptor. But why is a lot of modernist poetry shit or insufferably pretentious? I say: it doesn't yet have the benefit of 200 years' hindsight (and critique!) The 1800s rhyming poetry taught in the schools is from a golden age of the English language, and we've really only remembered a tiny fraction of stand-out masterpieces. More tentatively:- I liked the comparison in the Reddit thread to the 19th-Century poets being like stabilizers on a child's bike. I fear it's too optimistic though. What if the state is limiting our poetic minds in childhood - so that our capacity to create and overthrow Form is limited to a banal, Hobbesian, decision over what rhymes with "Prole", and this with the dangerous side-effect that people constantly rhyming the 'easy' phonemes homogenizes them and eradicates dialect. "Everything rhymes with "ə". Best to make it your only vowel-sound. You'll still be able vote: one ə for yes two əs for no"
Ah (sorry, wrong vowel sound!) so the Canadians are nature's perfect-born poets, eh? On the other hand there are those people, mostly Valley-types or Midwesterners, who seem to jam in every vowel sound for any vowel. Think about how Moon Unit says "I don't know!" Or how Ahhh-nold says Bomb, and "Get out!" At least I remember a pretty hilarious comedian who did a great impression. Here we go, this gets the idea across: Ok, but to be more serious, thanks for playing. And hey, speaking for myself, I want to LEARN about poetry, that's why I haven't written anything to write home about yet. I didn't realize one had to already be highly experienced and knowledgeable to ask the questions. Inquiring minds want to learn. And now that I think about it, I posted a whole passel-o-pomes just recently, bitching and complaining at people I like here on the site. Probably counts as purely rhyme without any real poetry to it, but hey, it's a start, no? I'll ponder on what you've said, check the links and get back (as McCartney said).
This one I wasn't able to find. The rest all turned up easily, but when I tried Blackbird and Poetry together, I found a bunch of poems about blackbirds. Could you give us a link?
Here are some resources: https://classicalpoets.org/2021/05/31/teaching-classical-poetry-a-simple-guide-for-educators/#/ https://classicalpoets.org/2012/09/07/writing-classical-poetry-is-easy-technically/#/ I also found The Idiot’s Guide to Writing Poetry quite helpful.
Good idea! The Society of Classical Poets has plenty of good examples—I learned quite a bit just from reading Susan Jarvis Bryant. The first part is absolutely why modern poetry has switched to free verse. For the second, it’s the rare poet who can make free verse anything better than bad prose with random line breaks (not that most modern rhyming poetry isn’t awful as well). Good free verse has everything that makes good poetry except rhyme and meter. For myself, I find that without the constraints imposed by classical styles, the quality suffers greatly. One more thing: https://writersrelief.com/20-literary-magazines-that-publish-rhyming-poetry-writers-relief/ Also, if you have any questions about the process of becoming a poet, please feel free to PM me.
And just to be clear, I did say this in my first post above: I know it frequently does, that pretty much goes without saying. I just didn't feel the need to repeat it every time or to belabor the point. @evild4ve I didn't mean to misquote you. My bad!
Awesome, I appreciate that! But I prefer to ask here, and keep this all available for everyone to see. Going to PM would sort of defeat the purpose of this thread. But I do hope to hear from you frequently.
Great thread to which I hope to have something to offer eventually (though what little poetry I've tried all rhymes). I remember back in the Dark Ages (my college years), when we were slogging through the required courses like history and government that involved a lot of memorization of names, dates, etc., we wrote songs with the facts as the lyrics set to music we all knew. During exams it sounded like a drum concert as we all tapped our pencils to the beat of the music. I'd guess there are plenty of young folks today who would claim they can't memorize so much as a shopping list, but can belt out every song Taylor Swift ever recorded.
A book I used to help me get past the rope that divides the deep end of the pool is Mary Oliver... A Poetry Handbook. I will have to spend some time practicing the nuances she brings forward. Not that I will use them, but I have often said... know the rules before you break them. I had about two-hundred short rhyming stories I thought were poems, but I was naïve—by the true meaning of the word—back then. I haven't lost my love of poetry and I'm inspired by Kahlil Gibran, but not so much with Lord Byron.
D'oh! As soon as you say it it's obvious. I was operating off of things I thought I had read (but probably just assumed). Again of course! Archaic rap battles, showing off da skillz. Hey, if you got it, flex it. But on the flip side of that coin, words fall out constantly at an appalling rate too. Or at least if you use some of the ones favored so much by our forebears you'll sound archaic and pretentious. Mayhap thou knowest to what I refer? See... in a way I'd love to write like that, and mayhap I shall, just for the jollity. Methinks though t'would be all too easy to fall into simple parody. But you know, for fun. Hey, making learning fun is like three quarters of the battle! You don't want to gett too serious and uptight about it, at least not all the time. That's why your rap battle was so epic. We got to cut loose and just act ridiculous and do whatever we wanted while scribbling rhymes and verses. I burned myself out though and didn't like the idea that every rhyme had to blast somebody. Too much potential for hurt feelings and terminated friendships. But it did plant the seed for this thread.
I say this from well without the poetry sphere (I've written like... 4 poems in my life, not means winners by any award), but the thing about even loose rhyming schemes and structure in general to an extent is the writer has to put a massive amount of time and effort into making it look natural instead of contrived. And.. that's a good thing in my opinion. I want a lot less, and I want it to be more compelling. The unstructured always has that risk of an underlying quality the reader was too dense to notice or feel, and it seems that's kept in mind while the poet shoots out lines upon lines of poem. "You wouldn't understand." Can't poorly perform at what one doesn't attempt in the first place, can he? Dodging quality reference like it's the military draft. I went to PoetryFoundation.org and checked out the front page's poems. 2020: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/160582/the-payphone I don't get anything out of it. Except there's lots of imagery, but without any structure I can discern, why not make it flash fiction or a short story? https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/160580/sex-648b1935eea0d 2022. Same thing. What's the point of this being categorically poetry? https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/160592/at-the-equinox 2014. This one has something going on. Integrates ebb/flow into the spacing of the lines. I can at least understand why it's a poem. It's okay. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/160557/he-too 2022. Why? Why poem, other than its particular meta note? https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/160573/lies-told-honestly 2019. Same. I don't get it, don't understand why that's the form. Disclaimer, there are lots of free-form poems I like (a lot of them in our workshop), but broadly speaking there is so much of... this out there. Evil Dfourve may be on to something in that critique itself is dropping the ball here, I don't know. Or maybe this is time filtering at work again, like how we think most music published 30-40 years ago is good, but the examples around today are the popular surviving fraction.
