by David Horowitz
Rhymes are seeds which I can often grow into poems. On Post-It Notes and napkins and notebook pages I scribble: rune/moon/strewn; flinch/finch; follow/swallow; rose/crows; sale/fail; memo/demo; power lunch/product launch; governing board/extension cord; cup of coffee/photocopy; grin/sin; glib/fib; muddle/befuddle. These word-mates not only sound alike. They suggest relationships of meaning and mood.
Indeed, love of rhyming reflects human nature—our symmetry, pulse, and lust for connection. Rhymes typically end lines and so gain special prominence. When embellished through enjambement, variation of line length, and choice of form—couplet, sonnet, triolet, villanelle, quatrain—they help establish a poem’s tone. That said, rhymes can be internal—as well as assonantal, consonantal, off, homophonic, identical, broken, masculine, feminine. Such marvelous diversity and challenge!
I hear the stereotypical put-downs, the association of rhyme with greeting card clichés. My friend, do you know about this poem by Philip Larkin or these lines by Matthew Prior, and do you know of the Spanish Golden Age sonneteers or the light verse of Ogden Nash? Would you let me read one of my own poems?
NOTE TO A CYNIC
A grape in brine
Cannot yield wine.
That’s not bad? Well, maybe rhyme has more to offer you than you thought. Now, let’s see what you think of this ….