I chose not to rhyme because it is not neccassary to rhyme in today’s poem culture. It is considered a somewhat immature to rhyme in poetry.
A rhymed poem for all the folks who wanted it
A cat chased a rat
The rat had a bat
The rat hit the cat
In the head with a bat
The cat had a bruise
At night he could not snooze
He turned out the fuse
No, No snooze
Now the cat hates the rat
And he hates the bat
The rat loves the bat
That made the cat stop chasing the rat
Now…you decide, which poem is better?
Justin,
Thanks for the poem.
I saw lots of rhymes in the Williamsons poem. e.g. cascades-braids, pools-rules, spills- rills- sills, place-race.
I was not very sure about the “meter” so I wrote to him.
This is what he wrote me back.
Dear Mabi,
Where in the world did you find that poem? It is in a pattern of meter and rhyme, but it’s just made up for that occasion. Sounds like you must be a writer, yourself. Anyhow, thanks.
Greg
So there are more things in poetry. Your eyes dont see what your brain does not know.
I see potential in Aarju that she will some day will be writing poems not only with rhymes but also in refrains with lots of alleterations. She will be using some classical meters and will be writing Sonnets and etc.
Other wise, (as someone commented somewhere here) she can write prose and break down into broken sentences and call it a poem.
Again, the choice is hers.
Poetry is more complex than it seems – if you know.
Try some poems in NewYorker and see if they make sense to you.
They may look like broken sentences – without rhyme with lots of messages.
Yeap ! There are more poetry written in free verse that do not follow any patterns of “meter” or “rhymes” and use of metronomes become obsolute and so called Iambic and Sonnets become ridiculously hard.
However, you can take your diction to a different level if you practice some classic methods.
The choice is yours !
Ya, semantics are more important than presentation.
But if one could fetch the freedom of ‘free verse flow’ with a fluently rhymed poem… definitely that would not be an immature form of art.
Feels better if rules are broken…
Whether or not poem rhymes does not determine its quality.
Waterfall
In still transparency, the water pools
High in a mountain stream, then spills
Over the lip and in a sheet cascades
Across the shoal, obeying hidden rules,
So that the pleats and braids,
The feather-stitched white water, little rills
And divots seem to ride in place
Above the crevices and sills,
Although the water runs along the race.
(cropped for fair use)
-Greg Williamson, 1994
this is kinda like “Tom and Jerry” 😉 …
i won’t say that free verses are not good.. they are better in their own ways.. a poet has to choose his/her own style. but poems that rhyme can be used to express feelings in a melodous way, in a tone that gets stuck to your mind. Anyways, i’m just suggesting.. i love free verses too..