This website

[Alexander III]

This I believe, was understood, even specifically stated. The point made was that despite the difficulty of rhyme, it should still be pursued. It should be pursued not only as a benefit to the poet, but so that old forms used for modern purposes, and do not die. And like Darcy, claiming that 'rhyming is dead' is conformity - even more ridiculous coming from an 'innovative' poet.

I never said don't rhyme, I just said that I understood why the sentiment "Rhyme is ridicoulous" might occur in some people. If your entire experiance with rhyme, is one that merley acentuates the mediocrity of your poem, of course you would find yourself to have a natural aversion to it.

[henrymilesoxfor]

I try not to respond to criticism, partly because I want my writing to stand on it's own merits, and partially because I don't want to give anybody reason to be gentile towards my matreial. That being said I value the criticism from those strangers who have taken time to review my work. I have come to depend on Hill's honest reviews and if he were to quit I would seriously question the value of posting further work in the future. As I suspect this is an overly dramatic protest to flex his internet muscle, I will keep hope that he will continue to do god's work and read through the countless mediocre stories so that writers such as myself can continue to improve. Anybody who can not stand honest feedback can quit writing. Don't ruin it for the rest of us.

[Charles Darnay]

I try not to respond to criticism, partly because I want my writing to stand on it's own merits, and partially because I don't want to give anybody reason to be gentile towards my matreial. That being said I value the criticism from those strangers who have taken time to review my work. I have come to depend on Hill's honest reviews and if he were to quit I would seriously question the value of posting further work in the future. As I suspect this is an overly dramatic protest to flex his internet muscle, I will keep hope that he will continue to do god's work and read through the countless mediocre stories so that writers such as myself can continue to improve. Anybody who can not stand honest feedback can quit writing. Don't ruin it for the rest of us.

Yes, I also don't want to give anybody reason to be gentile towards my material.....I'm not a fan of overly Christian criticism (sorry couldn't resist).


On a more serious note.....there are other members of the community that do give insightful feedback/criticism to posted work - and so I hope you will continue to share your stuff. That being said, Jack and Hill's absences, both, have been noticed over the past few days/week.

[Haunted]

No, you said not to post them here because no one would take him seriously.

What I was saying is, no creative writing program on a university level would admit someone who writes poems that rhyme, at least not in New York. They will be laughed out of class. But rhyme away if it's your thing, I'm not stopping you.

Hawk posted a rhyming poem a couple of days ago that you gushed over

You have missed something I said:

There is a small handful of what I considered "Litnet Greats" who can deliver a few rhyming charmers.

Hawk is one of the "Litnet Greats" I was referring to. If you follow Hawk's work he is a master in rhymes, his poems are brilliant. He can pull it off because his rhymes don't get in the way, as opposed to some who twist their lines so out of shape just to fit their rhymes, the poems don't even make sense.

Let me quote from an accomplished poet, whose view I shared:

"It’s not rhyme which is bad, it’s bad rhyming. To do it well one needs a good vocabulary and a solid understanding of what the words mean. A healthy sense of rhythm helps too. Do it well and it’s almost invisible because the reader just enjoys the fun and wordplay. Get it wrong and everyone jumps on it. Rhyme is a useful tool. By rhyming you can soften the blow of what you are saying because it gives a poem a tongue in cheekiness. You can get away with saying some outrageous stuff It’s certainly not the be all and end all of poetry though, any more than free verse is."

a skillful use of rhyme and language trumps overly obscure (to the point of being almost meaningless) free-verse poems about death and middle-class depression in my books, which is apparently what people "take seriously" around this stupid sub-forum.

Calling the section "stupid" and categorically condemning everyone just because some favor certain works is uncalled for. It's not so much a particular theme that appeals to them, it's the skill of writing and how it's put together. Besides everyone is entitled to their opinion.

The majority of literature explores the human condition, that's human suffering if you are not familiar with the term. If you like Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet is a prime example. Other classics like Wuthering Heights and Tess of D'urberville also deal with death and tragedy. Greene Greene's novels are down right depressing.

I'm not just trying to be confrontational

You could have knocked me out with a feather.

I take honest issue with what you said, you're parroting a modern sentiment which I've heard many times from the lazier "creative" writing students in my university and it always really bugs me. You are effectively closing people's minds before they even start. Statements like "no one takes rhyme seriously" inhibits growth (also, it isn't just Shakespeare who wrote sonnets, the English sonnet type is simply named after him - implying that rhyme is as dated as the feather quill suggests that you don't often read or study poetry).

hmmm...I studied literature through grad school, I think I know. These days the only thing that rhymes are greeting card copy.

Learning how to employ rhyme in an effective manner is one of the most impressive things that a poet can accomplish, they're never going to learn anything if you just tell them not to try right off the bat.

They teach rhymes at school and it's important to expose students to different types of writing. Once again, quote: it’s not so much that rhyme is bad, it’s bad rhyming.

Hahaha, my boyfriend just read the sentence "rhymes belongs to a time when people wrote with a feather" over my shoulder and asked (and I quote) "who the f*ck are you talking to?"

Perhaps you should date someone who's less vulgar.

[Darcy88]

Shakespeare was great, so was Chaucer. But the world keeps evolving. Rhymes belongs to a time when people wrote with a feather. Now we use ballpens, keyboards and virtual keyboards. To see what poetry looks like since the 20th century, I recommend T.S. Eliot, or Alan Ginsberg and Charles Bukowsky (sp)

William Butler Yeats wrote with a feather pen? He was a thousand times the poet of Ginsberg or Bukowsky. Are you arguing that rhyming poetry is inherently inferior to free verse? Actually, I can answer my own question and say yes you are arguing that in this day an age, an age in which poetry has evolved beyond rhyme, non-rhyming verse is in fact superior. That's a little silly. A great poem is a great poem, rhyme or no rhyme.

[Jack of Hearts]

As someone who has probably never written a poem without rhyme, this reader is starting to hate this thread.

This thread is a pimple in Litnet's nether-regions and the bacteria that spawned it.

The original poster asked for perspective on this website. Well, je te présente Litnet. The internet. The 21st century in people.







J

[JuniperWoolf]

yes there is a point to not taking rhyme seriously, because if one uses rhyme in a peom there is a 99.9% chance it will simply empahsize the mediocrity of their poem

Well yeah, but better to try out the more difficult classic styles as well as non-rhyming free-verse than to perpetually cower under a veneer of pop-art obscurity, don’t you think? You’d get torn apart, but you’d improve as a result.

What I was saying is, no creative writing program on a university level would admit someone who writes poems that rhyme, at least not in New York. They will be laughed out of class.

Don't even try it. This is the 21st century, we live in a globalized society. The poets at a NY university are no more or less cultured or sophisticated than those from any other university in the world. My friend Scott goes to school in NY and he was shocked by how similar they are to us (apparently, he thought you would all be characters from Guys and Dolls).

Also, almost every published contemporary poet uses rhyme as a sound device, which you should know if you really have taken a university level poetry course. I'd like to see you laugh at John Ashbery.

You have missed something I said. Hawk is one of the "Litnet Greats" I was referring to. If you follow Hawk's work he is a master in rhymes, his poems are brilliant. He can pull it off because his rhymes don't get in the way, as opposed to some who twist their lines so out of shape just to fit their rhymes, the poems don't even make sense.

I know, and that served to make your previous post even more ridiculous.

It’s not rhyme which is bad, it’s bad rhyming. To do it well one needs a good vocabulary and a solid understanding of what the words mean.

And how is someone supposed to develop that understanding if you advocate cowardice and suggest that they don't even bother to try?

hmmm...I studied literature through grad school, I think I know. These days the only thing that rhymes are greeting card copy.

Tell that to Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, Yehuda Amichai, Charles Bukowski, Adrienne Rich, Seamus Heaney, or any other great contemporary poet - or did you not study them in grad school?

Perhaps you should date someone who's less vulgar.

Someone who's more boring, you mean? I think I’ll pass.

[Emil Miller]

It takes a tonne of skill to make the rhyme fit the ideas and I wonder whether some people dislike rhyme because they are lazy and would rather not bother. Poetry can rhyme or not rhyme, both have their positive sides. Rhyme can be powerful, hence why song-writers take full advantage of it.

I hesitate to comment on this thread because I don't have any particular interest in poetry. However, it has come to my attention that you can get away with an awful lot of tosh in free verse, which to my mind is like prose writing without a plot. To give an example of what I mean, here is a poem in free verse followed by the same poem in rhyme. I know which one I prefer.


Oh Gloria, glorious Gloriana of my distant ambiguous youth.
Gloria in excelsis Deo, who hath given unto a cruel and demeaning world
She who in thoughtless innocence plighted her troth to aristocratic desire,
And then unto a minstrel and a wandering troubadour of lesser breed
Whose mingled chimes and tessiture,
Dance upon the wafting waves of sound into resonant obscurity.
Twice defiled by he who, though high born, be lower
Than the height of a grasshopper’s knee.
And those who merry musick doth make in distant lands.


There was a young lady called Gloria
Who seduced Sir Gerald Du Maurier,
Jack Hulbert, Jack Payne
Sir Gerald again
And the band of the Waldorf Astoria

[Alexander III]

I hesitate to comment on this thread because I don't have any particular interest in poetry. However, it has come to my attention that you can get away with an awful lot of tosh in free verse, which to my mind is like prose writing without a plot. To give an example of what I mean, here is an example of a poem in free verse followed by the same poem in rhyme. I know which one I prefer.


Oh Gloria, glorious Gloriana of my distant ambiguous youth.
Gloria in excelsis Deo, who hath given unto a cruel and demeaning world
She who in thoughtless innocence plighted her troth to aristocratic desire,
And then unto a minstrel and a wandering troubadour of lesser breed
Whose mingled chimes and tessiture,
Dance upon the wafting waves of sound Into resonant obscurity.
Twice defiled by he who, though high born, be lower
Than the height of a grasshopper’s knee.
And those who merry musick doth make in distant lands.


There was a young lady called Gloria
Who seduced Sir Gerald Du Maurier,
Jack Hulbert, Jack Payne
Sir Gerald again
And the band of the Waldorf Astoria

Personaly I think they are both equally ridicoulous.

[WolfLarsen]

The ryhme in poetry is dead. Trying to argue that the ryhme in poetry is not dead is like trying to argue that the earth is flat. Rhyming weakens the contemporary poem. If a ryhming poem is decent it is in spite of the fact of the ryhmes. Each ryhme is like nails on blackboard.

I defend forever the right of people to create poetry that ryhmes. But contemporary poetry that ryhmes is nearly always bad poetry. But I still defend someon's right to create and post bad poetry.

[papayahed]

It seems the original question has been answered in a mature and welcoming manner and this thread can now be closed.