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Post by ScintillaMyntan on Apr 28, 2024 20:17:35 GMT -6
I like poems that rhyme. I also like ones that don't. But rhymes aren't fashionable anymore and are associated with bad writing, and I wish they could be redeemed. When I was critiquing the contest entries that rhyme, I was trying to figure out what needs to be done in a poem to make rhyme 'okay.'
Is rhyme just discredited because it's notorious for being used amateurishly? My coworkers and I once put on a livestream of a work-related court hearing, and one person gave testimony in bad rhyming couplets that, if I remember correctly, didn't even really address the legal issue. We had a laugh. I didn't know how the judges were keeping a straight face.
I tried to look up what distingushes good rhyme from something like that. This interesting book chapter, Reduced to Rhyme, even starts with some silly uses of rhyme in a court trial. I learned that while for us, songs generally rhyme and written poetry doesn't, it used to be the opposite. Some critics have insisted rhyme is necessary for a good poem, and others say rhyme is for light verse, not for making any serious points. I do see how rhyme adds lightheartedness, but I've definitely read poems that deliver solemnity effectively while rhyming. He mentions that Ezra Pound said rhymes need an "element of surprise" to be good, which is what makes it funny to throw a predictable "pandemonium/zirconium" in a court case about a zirconium ring. He also says many good poets use enjambment to make rhymes a bit more subtle, which "addresses a potential embarrassment." Among hip-hop songs he does consider to be "doggerel," he praises the use of the form as parody, rhymes and puns that invite comparison and contrast between the two words, and the use of less-predictable rhyme to artfully set up and break expectations.
I was disappointed, for my own needs, that the chapter mostly talked about how to write good 'doggerel,' not how to write rhyme that isn't doggerel. Is there a distinction? Apparently so according to the author, since he says there's lots of doggerel in hip-hop because they can parody the good rhyming conventions of the genre, whereas contemporary poetry generally doesn't rhyme, so there's nothing to parody.
As I was trying to figure that out, I came across W.H. Auden's " Doggerel by a Senior Citizen." I'm uncomfortable that I don't know what makes it doggerel. Some forced rhymes, some too-obvious examples of complaints? What even is a non-doggerel rhyming verse? Looking for modern examples of rhyme that's considered good, I found a 2010 poem from Poetry magazine, " The Angel with the Broken Wing" by Dana Gioia, which rhymes ABCB, and I quite like it. What makes this poem permissible? Rhyming "irony" with the -ly ending of "apologetically" seems like something people would consider bad and that I would nitpick at if I had to vote on this poem in a contest — yet I like this poem. And it got into the journal. |
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Post by RAVENEYE on May 2, 2024 8:41:01 GMT -6
About the Auden poem, the only things I can find that make it a doggerel are the rhyming couplets and the irregular rhythm of the lines, as opposed to an established meter. I'm basing that on this definition of doggerel: "comic verse composed in irregular rhythm." The theme in Auden's poem isn't comical, but note how the couplets give it a silly lighthearted sort of facelift. Which, honestly, makes it a bit grotesque, which, no doubt, is intentional. Veterans of LF are probably sick of hearing my diatribes against rhyming poetry. However, I have read some contemporary poems that use rhyming to wonderful effect, in serious poems, not just intentional "doggerel." Now I just need to remember what those poems were so I can link them. I think one was by Gary Snyder or Robert Pinsky...? Anyway... POINT IS, I have issues with most rhyming poems for the following reasons: 1. rhyming couplets are traditionally reserved for comic poems. Using couplets in a poem about the death of your child or other grave matter is probably a bad choice. (This single practice drives me so crazy that it makes my ears sting like nails on a chalkboard.) It may be assumed that people who use couplets for serious themes don't know this, in which case, it's not difficult these days to research poetic forms and schemes. 1. simple rhymes make a poem sound like a nursery rhyme. "The old woman who lived in a shoe / had so many children she didn't know what to do." I agree with the comments about rhymes needing to be unexpected. 1. to make many rhymes work, people resort to convoluting phrases into archaic forms. We don't live in the time of Shakespeare anymore, so this practice makes the poem sound contrived, just to get the rhyme to function properly. 1. or worse, choosing a word because it rhymes even if it doesn't make a lick of sense within the poem's message (I'm remembering a past member of the former LF who did this all the time (no names b/c I can't remember it), and despite my questions they never had a good explanation, so I stopped reading their poems). ** Exceptions include slam poetry that is performed (not read on the page) and song lyrics being performed (not read on the page). If lyrics are read on the page (or screen) they usually sound ridiculous and child-like. Music makes all the difference and saves the poem from ludicrousness. So I think a great deal of this comes down to writing poetry without training or literature studies behind it. I.E. honest ignorance of the non-insulting kind. Also, I think a lot of folks try to write poetry but rarely READ any. Lastly, they may be unaware of the need to spend a LOT of time hammering discipline into a poem, especially if it's meant to rhyme and have a regular meter. Nothing in a poem should happen accidentally. IMHO. And of course, this is just one reader's take on it. I'm sure others will disagree. But seriously, don't use couplets unless you're writing comedy or satire. PLEASE. It just doesn't work. If there's an exception to this, please link me to it. Um, I'm disappointed by this too, and I haven't even read it. According to the definition of "doggerel" a poem that has an established meter AND an established rhyme scheme is not doggerel (example: sonnet), and the author doesn't touch on that? Weird. There are tons of rhyming poetic forms that aren't doggerel: www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/list-of-50-poetic-forms-for-poets |
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