Interesting things yr saying (Arthur, David, Sally) about end-line rhymes
here!
I often find two “slant rhymes” somewhere in a poem with full rhymes feels
wrong. But I recognise that accent plays sounds differently in different
areas of the English speaking world. How would a Jamaican, or someone from
Hong Kong, read Wordsworth – not with a Cumbrian accent where “water” is
said as “watter” I’m sure. Rhymes is sound and, in the end, no two voices
makes sounds the same.
And, like Arthur, I get confused when I come across statements mentioning
“slant rhyme,” “half-rhyme,” “near rhyme,” “para-rhyme” (?) and I sort of
assume they’re each ways of describing the same thing. I remember once being
unable to stop giggling when I read something about “quarter rhyme” and
“eighth rhyme”! I guess it’s almost like trying to transcribe jazz solos
onto paper...
And I think it was Yeats who once declared that he got his ideas from the
rhymes... I’m not so sure I can go with that... But I recognise the subtlety
of increasing the sound-links between end-of-line words – or diminishing
them as a poem progresses... It’s sort of writing with your ears. If the
poem is flowing from your pen (or on yr screen), and yr working from start
to finish, then increasing or (more interestingly) decreasing the impact of
how it rhymes certainly does manoeuvre things in subtle and significant
ways.
Bob
PS. For those who can get hold of a copy of The Oxford Companion To 20th
Century Poetry by Ian Hamilton there’s a neat little article about how
rhyme’s been used (even tho the books an A-Z of poets) that’s well worth a
browse. (Maybe 2 minutes in a library and enough coins for photocopying two
pages if y like what y see!).




>From: Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: New sub: Funeral Rites ( a la David Anthony)
>Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 23:06:01 +0100
>
>yes, I often start unrhymed and become progressively more rhymed as I
>proceed in a poem, as I find this often works, especially to use a rhymed
>last couplet in a more loosely rhymed poem.
>SallyE
>
>on 10/7/02 10:53 pm, Brigid Anthony at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> > Interesting comment, Arthur.
> > I scan this as mostly iambic, with acceptable variations; excepting L3,
>and
> > to a lesser extent L11 (which also has 9 syllables).
> > Much though I admire Heaney, I don't think you can hold him up as a
>paragon
> > when it comes to rhyming best practice.
> > Concerning arts/out, the problem for me is, pronounced in RP it's
>nowhere
> > near a rhyme; pronounced in Yorkshire it's almost a homophone, therefore
> > not good rhyme.
> > As a general rule, I think slant (half) rhymes work OK if you start a
>poem
> > on slants and progress to perfect rhyme; but less well the other way
>round.
> > Sorry, I'm sounding pedantic, so I'll stop.
> > Best regards,
> > David




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