Why Don't Poems Rhyme Anymore?

The Queen's English Society may sound like the name of a Monty Python sketch, but I assure you it's very real. The group aims to protect "the beauty and precision of the English Language," and it's currently up in arms about supposed poems that--egad!--have no rhyme or meter.

The President of the QES, a man named Michael George Gibson (it may be a QES requirement to use three names), recently told the British newspaper The Guardian, "For centuries word-things, called poems, have been made according to primary and defining craft principles of, first, measure, and second, alliteration and rhyme. Word-things not made according to those principles are not poems."

I'm sorry...word-things?

Anyway, the QES isn't alone. Here in America, a movement called New Formalism has been pushing for a return to formal verse for decades. The poet and critic Dana Gioia in his "Notes on New Formalism" ticked off what he perceived to be the problems with contemporary free verse poetry:

The debasement of poetic language; the prolixity of the lyric; the bankruptcy of the confessional mode; the inability to establish a meaningful aesthetic for new poetic narrative and the denial of a musical texture in the contemporary poem. The revival of traditional forms will be seen then as only one response to this troubling situation.

I can hear the QES members tapping their canes in agreement.

Formalists have been tapping their canes for about a century now. Literary history records a sprinkling of early free verse poets like Walt Whitman and Christoper Smart, but the movement began in earnest in the early 1900s. Ezra Pound, who many consider to be the movement's figurehead, was a devoted student of poetry's traditions and a strong believer in the power of form, but he found the strict adherence to rhyme and meter limiting and artificial. He wrote many formal poems himself and thought poets should study the art's traditions before moving beyond them. He also felt they shouldn't move too far, writing "poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from the music."

Nonetheless, the free verse movement was something of a jailbreak. Freed from formal constraints, poets quickly pushed the limits of what could be called poetry. Here's a Gertrude Stein poem that could only be called Roast Potatoes:

Roast Potatoes

Roast potatoes for.

No, that's not an excerpt. Stein means to focus your attention on the transformation of the word "roast" into a verb.

Most contemporary poets take a mixed stance on free verse versus formalism. There's a general feeling that metrical, rhyming verse strikes the ear little too harshly these days, but poets haven't abandoned form altogether. Poets make use of subtler techniques like internal rhyme (rhyming within, rather than at the end, of lines) and slant rhymes (words that almost rhyme like "black" and "bleak"). Most poets still write with a music, but it's far more varied (and usually more subtle) than music typical of traditional verse.

I think most poets would also agree that you don't have to use rhyme and meter to write a great poem. Take the well-known word-thing This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams.

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

If that doesn't protect "the beauty and precision of the English Language," I don't know what does.

Still find yourself a fierce proponent of poetic purity? You're welcome to join the QES at the New Cavendish Club in London every other Thursday. And who doesn't enjoy a brisk debate about grammatical standards! Trust me, one might ensue. The QES's wikipedia entry--and I guarantee you they are all over their wikipedia entry--states "a commitment to standards should not preclude the possibility of grammatical change; nor does it mean, however, that change should be mindlessly celebrated for its own sake."

Mindless celebrating! Dare they forget how they got booted from Old Cavendish!

Comments

[Josephus]

Free verse is more akin to prose than poetry. To pretend otherwise is a conceit.

The so-called "word things" that are defined as poetry at present in obscure academic journals is nothing more than prose that is arbitrarily broken up into disjointed lines with no meter nor rhyme.

Consider the "word-thing" This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams that was given as an example in the article. If one were to write it out as a sentence with the normal punctuation, it becomes prose with no loss of meaning.

"I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me; they were delicious so sweet and so cold."

While beautiful it is still prose and not poetry. This exercise can be done with any prose masquerading as poetry. And after having done such an exercise, ask anyone not familiar with the original "poem" to arrange it back into the form it was originally written and most will not be able to. Without rhyme and beat, how it is arranged is arbitrary.

To pretend that free verse is poetry is by definition, pretentious. As such, we have too many pretentious "poets" who do not take into consideration the beat of the heart nor the brain, which is the essence of poetry.

[Maanu]

I really can't attest to the state of poetry as these dudes frame it. I do know, being raised on rap (among other things), that in the hip hop community people have been professing that rap (esp. intelligent rap) is dead for years now. I know better and understand the power of rhythmic oratory. People will be rhyming and rapping forever. Because it's fun and people appreciate it. Getting together with your friends, writing verses and choruses over produced beats, freestyling a cappela on street corners and in parks. I've been all over the world touring and can attest that this is happening globally, among all demographics.
Slam poetry is worldwide as well, and although it's not my favorite form, I respect it. It's given people across the world a way to express themselves.
From my firsthand experience I must say that a renaissance has occurred and is occurring with these artforms. New styles are developed rapidly and creativity abounds and is encouraged. And popularity-wise, it's killing the competition. Interesting begets interest.
The word is alive and strong, the muse is enchanting, and the people are dancing. Get off the wall.

[marzipan]

Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye by Leonard Cohen
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,
walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,

but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.

[copesthetics]

smikron gunaikei tout' einai dokeis

[copesthetics]

nunc est bibendum

[Uselessboy]

HuffPost's Pick

Why does our kids' music sound like noise? What's with their weird haircuts and clothing? And all their gadgets?

Why does modern art look like rhinoceroses throwing paint at walls?

Isn't this complaint about 15,000 years old and counting?

[sssteverrr]

Nuff said #5:

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

[sssteverrr]

Nuff said #4:

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

[sssteverrr]

Nuff said #3:

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

[sssteverrr]

Nuff said #2:

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

[sssteverrr]

Nuff said #1:

"Bob Dyan"

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

[GiggidyGeshmoygen]

roses are red

violets are blue

some poems rhyme

but this one doesn't ...

[S1m0n]

End rhyme in english poetry is a foreign practice adopted out of cultural insecurity in imitation of the poetry of romance languages. It's not a real part of the Queen's english at all.

[Gary47]

The only fun thing about living in a box is making others live in it too.

This only other thing to say about this is what is a fox to do?

There. Are they happy now?

[jukesgrrl]

Do any neurologists ever research this subject? Rhyming verse is definitely processed in a different part of the brain than prose verbiage. I have known two people with aphasia -- one from a brain injury and one from dementia -- who are completely unable to speak, but they can sing a familiar song, or recite a verse that was memorized prior to their aphasia. I have a friend whose mother has been totally silent since her stroke nearly 20 years ago, but on her children's birthdays she sings "Happy Birthday" to them quite capably with no coaching and she can belt out God Bless America on cue. Those are the only occasions on which her voice is heard. Perhaps more brains are predisposed to higher functioning in the area that has to do with recognizing rhyming, rather than the areas required to evaluate creative language usage of a more complex variety. This would explain why Richard Wilbur's work is preferred more frequently than Allen Ginsberg's, even though Ginsberg's contribution to American poetry is clearly superior.