Thanks for understanding that there are different tastes in poetry. Why would you bother to read in the first place, if you did not like the style of poetry? I am pleased that I read all types of poetry. I am not so glad that you are pleased with your narrow-minded view of poetry. I will read your poems, and will evaluate them fairly. I love poetry period!
That’s a disappointingly prejudicial and close-minded response, virtuoso. This isn’t an argument about rhyme per se. It’s about how rhyme is used, along with all other aspects (including language and diction) to create poetry. I, and others, don’t object to your poems because they rhyme, we object to them because of the way in which you’ve used rhyme (and archaic language). In the case of this poem, it reads like a poetry exercise – see how many of the words in your rhyming dictionary you can cram into the poem. So the form dictates the poetry; you don’t care too much what you say, as long as you get the rhyming end-word in there. It’s artistically bankrupt.
Rhyme has moved on over the years; through your poetry, you show no awareness of that. And there’s also a hidden snobbery to your use of archaic language, as if contemporary language isn’t ‘poetical’ enough. Anyone who’s read contemporary poetry can see through your writing immediately and will dismiss it as irrelevant. If you want to improve, you need to change.
And if you think there are no contemporary poets using rhyme, you’re just betraying your ignorance of contemporary poetry. Try Richard Wilbur (US Poet Laureate 1987-88), Anthony Hecht (US Poet Laureate 1982-84), Don Paterson, Glyn Maxwell, Tony Harrison, Kay Ryan (US Poet Laureate 2008-10), Sean O’Brien, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon… and there were plenty of other 20th century poets as well – Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Larkin, Auden, James Merrill, Michael Donaghy, Peter Porter… - if you’d care to find them.
Many of these poets are among my favourites, partly because they rise to the challenge of using traditional forms in ways that are relevant to contemporary society, and by using modern language and diction. Some have even been innovative and tried to push things forward. It was noticeable that you didn’t give any poets’ names in your response but relied on lazy, generalised, snobbish comments instead. Try telling current Oxford University Professor of Poetry Geoffrey Hill he’s ‘vapid’. Oh, and he uses rhyme as well.
I will agree with you that current British Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, isn’t particularly good. But hang on, she uses rhyme. So by your argument, automatically she must be a good poet, even though, by implication, you dismiss her ‘choppy, tortured verses’. Likewise, William McGonagall did use rhyme – so he must be brilliant – even though he’s often considered the worst poet ever!? I’m confused! Either that, or your argument is illogical and utterly without foundation.
And are you seriously trying to argue that the opinions of a few internet posters are more valid than the editor of a reputable (inter)national poetry magazine? If so, you’re only deluding yourself (and contributors to this site haven’t liked your work anyway). And then you imply your poetry is written for the ‘common man’. I find this a bizarre and laughable argument, lacking all self-awareness. When was the last time you head a ‘common man’ say anything approaching:
Whose steely eyes sky's tenants doth frivolously indict;
His insatiable, rapacious appetite to expedite
(The answer is 1763. I know, because I was there. I have a Tardis.) No-one today speaks like you write poetry, least of all the ‘common man’. Even you! Try reading Wordsworth’s famous Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads for your answer to that one (written more than 200 years ago).
It’s great you’ve got an interest in poetry and are keen to write. But it’s not great that you’re stuck in the past and are unwilling to challenge your own prejudices by pretending the 20th century never happened. So ultimately it’s up to you – you can continue to play it safe and write for a different age; or you can try to challenge yourself, read and appreciate more contemporary poets, and read more about how to use form for effect, and try to develop as a writer and bring yourself up to date. If you choose the former, your poetry will remain irrelevant and delusional. The choice is yours.
Last edited by blank|verse; 06-12-2013 at 02:26 PM.
I agree that end rhyme is not in vogue. I only wish that the poets on this site could overlook the old fashioned style and critique the content. Thanks for your poignant comments! I do write some poems that do not utilize end rhyme.
Yours fooly belongs to the pro-rhyme camp, but I consider end rhyme as a tool in he writer's tool-box, not an end in itself. There are some poetic forms, such as the sonnet, the limerick, the rondel, etc. which actually prescribe rhyme.
The issue here is not the so-called "rhyme scheme." (I've been known to experiment with off-beat end rhymes, even an "a-a-a-a-a" rhyme scheme.) The problem is that there seems to be a violation of the Cardinal Rule concerning rhyme.
Except for very unusual cases, end rhyme can only appear in metered verse. That means that each line must match its counterpart in both length and roughly the same number of syllables, but more important is the pattern of stresses. The end rhyme must be a stressed syllable. In iambic pentameter, for instance, the each line has five feet-each with an unstressed + stressed syllable, such as in this line by Robert Graves:
In your opening lines--O Love, be fed with apples while you may,
you have eleven syllables in the first line and thirteen in the second. The iambs pretty much line up in the first line, with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed. Your second line begins with a trochee (reversed iamb) which is okay, but you have too many unstressed syllables in the rest of the line: WIND that un a SUMming GAWkers afFRIGHT.What gallant form from vaunted perch does alight
Leaving tailwind that unassuming gawkers affright
The stresses are out of place in other lines, such as this one:
The stresses don't fall correctly, for this is how we pronounce these words in conversational English: oPAQUE HIGHlight.O'er silted folds his opaque image does highlight
When you alter natural word order or the normal pronunication of certain words in order to fit the meter or rhyme scheme, the result is called "wrenching," or "hyperaton." It sounds like Yoda speech, as awkward as all get-out. This is what makes readers hold their noses at rhyme.
Look at your poem and count how many times you use the word "does" to fill out the line. Once, maybe twice it's okay; more than that it's tedious. Also, anaphora (beginning a few consecutive lines with the same word)is a nifty device, but again, use the same word too often and it's like garlic. Far too many of your lines begin with "Who" "Whose" and "With."
I wholeheartedly agree with Blank_Verse re: contemporary diction. Why deliberately make your verse archaic and stilted? Bottom line: rhyme if you must, but when you do, do it effectively.
Strive for freshness in your writing.
Last edited by AuntShecky; 06-12-2013 at 07:14 PM.
I agree that the rhyme scheme does not follow a metric pattern. I was not attempting to construct a poem with perfect rhythm. My focus on this poem is clearly the subject matter. I use a lot of descriptive words to describe the nature and purview of the menacing, but magestic, hawk. I appreciate your deep critique. I have written numerous, other poems that have a prescribed, metric scheme. I look forward to reading more of your poignant reviews.
Nobody's perfect, least of all yours fooly. (The aforemntioned Robert Graves once said that it was impossible to write a perfect poem. If anyone ever did so, the world would end.)Originally Posted by virtuoso
My point is that, unless you have a metrical structure with the rhymes occurring on the stressed end syllables, steer clear of rhyme.
Aunt Shecky have you ever heard of inexact rhyme, also called near rhyme. Yeats used it in some of his poems. Don't get stressed out on the end stresses! You want exact rhyme. Many of my lines have exact end rhymes, some have inexact rhymes. Read some Yeats for me, and come back to my rhyming poems! Here is a Yeats stanza for you:
Heart-smitten with emotion I sink down
My heart recovering with covered eyes
Wherever I had looked I had looked upon
My permanent or impermanent images
Last edited by virtuoso; 06-14-2013 at 02:53 AM.
If by "near" rhyme, as you call it, is similar to slant rhyme or half-rhyme at the end of lines, then the convention regarding meter still applies, as does the admonition against wrenching syllables.
The Yeats lines cited do not have end rhyme. Incidentally, yours fooly would have to write verse for forty more years in addition to the forty I've already have written it, plus win every poetry prize ever offered, including the Nobel for Literature, before even thinking about comparing myself to Yeats in any way.
The point is that non-perfect rhyme schemes exist. As for the metric rhythm of poetry, I have seen very few poems on this site that would have the smooth, metric rhythm you seem to hold up as your holy grail. Why don't you critique some of the really lousy poems on this site, Aunt Drooly. Don't drool on about my poems.
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