[Roger Slater]

Maryann, what makes them even a slant rhyme? I'm not seeing either the assonance or the consonance.

[Elise Hempel]

The rhyme issue seems a bit off-track. I was just agreeing with Roger about the poem seeming to force a rhyme by using a less natural word. The bigger issue, I think, is that so far readers aren't "believing" the poem.

[Cyn Neely]

I was quite interested in the beginning of this poem, and then it kind of petered out for me. And while I am not a believer that true rhyme must always happen, there was enough of it that the attempts at slant or near rhyme seemed awkward to me and stood out. For me I don't want a poem to scream what it is trying to be, form-wise, but sometimes if it seems like it tries too hard to be quiet about it, it comes off even louder.

[Cyn Neely]

oops didn't read others' posts. I see Maryann had the same issues and I see Nemo thought it went nowhere at the end. Should have just said ditto I guess

[Elise Hempel]

Now I'm getting confused. Cyn -- I completely agree that I don't like formal poems that shout that they're formal poems, but where is there an attempt at slant rhyme in this sonnet? All the current rhymes are exact, as far as I can tell.

Maryann -- shouldn't the issue be whether Beth (or Bess) would normally use/speak/think such a word as réalité? The poem is about her, after all, isn't it? The issue is believability, and there seem to be problems with this on different levels.

[Janice D. Soderling]

away réalité

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVH6fsrJb1E

[Doris Watts]

I think there’s a bit of a glitch in logic here. Houdini was not examining the possibility of resurrection or freedom from the grave (death), merely a contact from/with the “great beyond.” It seems to me those are two different things.

[Cyn Neely]

yes it is the reality line - feels forced and while it is true rhyme if accented that way, a lot of us will read without the accent

But it's that line for sure that bugs me, takes me out of the poem and into the fact that it is trying to rhyme - had to stop there and see how I was supposed to read it - I don't like to do that. Might just be my own personal bugaboo.

And it's just my opinion anyway and not worth a whole lot :-)

[Roger Slater]

By the way, in L2, is "bequest" a typo for "request"? If not, the use of the word is a mistake, since a bequest is a legacy and the phrase "at his bequest" doesn't make sense. I'd suggest that the parenthetical be changed to "(on Halloween)", since it's an interesting fact (HH died on Halloween).

And "code word" should probably be changed to "code phrase," since I just read on Wikepedia that the code was "Rosabelle believe."

[Janice D. Soderling]

The "Beth" probably came from a quick google like this one.

For ten years following Houdini’s death, his wife Beth held an anniversary séance to try to communicate with her deceased husband. She finally gave up on the tradition, concluding that ten years was long enough to wait for any man.

There are a couple of other internet sites that refer to her as Beth.

"Bequest" was probably meant to be "behest".

behest

noun literary

a person's orders or command.
"they had assembled at his behest"
synonyms: instruction, bidding, request, requirement, wish, desire;

I'm thinking I know who wrote this, but mums the word.