[Clive Watkins]

I should be interested to hear the views of other members on how they set about writing in rhyme. Often we comment on the suitability of particular rhyme-pairs, or on how surprising or trite they are. I recall, as well, some discussion of rhyming dictionaries.

What I am interested in, however, is the actual thinking process our poets engage in when writing in rhyme. For instance, to what extent do rhyming pairs of words just "occur", off pat, as it were? To what extent is it a matter of conscious construction, of looking ahead across possible patterns of syntax and word-choice to potential rhyming pairs? To what extent do members allow the direction of a poem, or indeed even its substance, to be shaped by the range of words available as rhymes?

Different forms perhaps impose different ways of thinking. For instance, the mental processing required in composing rhyming couplets, common measure or a sonnet may differ from that required in writing terza rima. (I am in the middle of re-reading "La Divina Commedia". Despite the greater opportunity for rhyming in Italian, Dante’s skill in this respect still amazes me.) How consciously do these differences, if they exist, affect the way you work?

So, what practical advice - advice about the process of writing in rhyme - can our best rhymesters offer those who, like me, work in rhyme comparatively infrequently?

Clive Watkins

[Roger Slater]

I'm not a "best rhymster," so I'll just say what it's like for me.

It's actually a very strange and ambiguous process. When I get to the end of a line and know that I'll be called upon to rhyme the final word two lines later (for example), I'll "commit" to the final word without knowing exactly what the next rhyme will be...but it's not as if I'm ignoring rhyme, either. It's more like I try to get a "feel" for whether the word (a) will have enough stress to be heard in retrospect, when the rhyme finally happens, and (b) will yield rhymes that are in the ballpark of where I feel the content of the poem is moving.

Sometimes, when I get to the line that's supposed to rhyme, I encounter difficulties and I might go back to the first line and recast it for a different rhyme. And sometimes I can anticipate a rhyme that I may want to use and I try to adjust the content to lead up to that rhyme in a way that seems natural (i.e., not rhyme-driven). When that happens, sometimes I find that the rhyme word I'm interested in using forces me to come up with images or metaphors (or other content) that will allow that word to be used, so in a sense the content does become rhyme-driven...but as long as it doesn't "show," I don't see that as a problem but as one of the pleasures of writing in rhymed meter.

I suspect that lots of aspects of composition, and not just rhyming, work in this way. The poet writes a line based on "feel" and then tries to keep the action moving in a way that's faithful to the line that's been written, but often the poet needs to go back to revise the line that's been written to conform to the new lines that were written later.

I'll stop there, since I'm growing increasingly incoherent.

[Clive Watkins]

Fascinating, Roger!

Thanks!

Clive Watkins

[Jan D. Hodge]

What Roger said (including the disclaimer of being among the "best rhymsters"). I'd just add a note to one of the points he made: one of the pleasures and advantages of writing in form is that the requirements of form (including rhyme) often lead to discoveries one might not otherwise make--an important aspect of letting the poem find its own direction.

I'll risk hissing and quote a free verser (the lines of course are familiar): "Constantly risking absurdity / and death . . . / the poet like an acrobat / climbs on rime
/ to a high wire of his own making . . ."

And of course comic verse--"light" or "serious" (e.g. Byron or Browning)--can exploit the absurdity of surprising rhymes to advantage, the flip side of an infelicitous rhyme ruining an otherwise fine poem.

Cheers,
Jan

[Susan McLean]

When I am writing my own poems, I take a largely intuitive approach, much like what Roger describes (though a heavily rhymed form like a villanelle usually sends me to a rhyming dictionary to get a clearer idea of all the options). I have had to take a different tack in my rhymed translations of Catullus. Since I am not in control of the content, only the wording, I take it line by line, writing out literal translations of the content and looking for synonyms that might rhyme most easily (this part is extremely difficult and time consuming). If I am absolutely stumped for rhymes, I have occasionally gone for less literal translations and even inserted words that are not in the original (though I try at all costs to avoid this). I have found that it is important to rhyme on key words (not words like "and" or "it," even if they are easier). I wouldn't say that I have a knack for clever or funny rhymes, but I try hardest on the final rhyme, which has the biggest kick to it. And if the poem is obscene (often the case with Catullus) I try to rhyme on the obscenity, once again because it has the most impact.
Susan

[Roger Slater]

Susan, that's a great tip! Always rhyme on the obscenity! I like it.

Actually, though, I don't think that's a good idea now that I think of it. I think we saw one or two examples in the recent "sonnet bake-off" where the subject matter was so gruesome and intense that most critters thought it best for the poem to avoid rhyming on the obscene or otherwise emotional word....after all, you want to keep the middle of the line interesting, as well, and if all the powerful, important words are saved for the rhyme, then there's little left to give substance to the middle of the line.

And adding words to a translation? I guess it's done all the time, but I can't help but think it to be a no-no, particularly for rhyme words. As Mike Juster once remarked, translations sometimes might need to omit a word or two from the original, but they should never add a word. But there's a simple solution: Just add the word and don't call it a "translation." Take a page from Robert Lowell's book and simply call it an "imitation."

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Well, I've had people like my rhymes, so here's how I go about it: Most of the best rhymes come from my head, simply because rhyming dictionaries have limited vocabularies, and when you're in the flow of writing, it's counterintuitive to pause to look things up.

Rhyming dictionaries, however, are still useful. If you have some funky word you want to use, you can think of a more common word that rhymes with it, then use the rhyming dictionary to look that up.

I use the Rhymer that came with WordPerfect 7 for Dos. I also, somewhere on my machine, have the old Rhymer for WordPerfect 5.1. Both work well, and better than any of the online rhyming dictionaries, both in terms of vocabulary and the ability to specify numbers of syllables in words.

Then again, I often think of the rhymes I'm going to use and fill in the words to that point.

For me, rhymes are like end-stops and periods. They add an extra emphasis to a word. It's a position of strength, so you generally want to give it to your more content filled words.

The overused rhymes are the ones such as bled/red/dead which form their own logical structure that even a kindergartener can follow. That's why they're so overused. No one uses samoyed/chowderhead/underfed as much, because they are not as generally useful or meaning-packed.

There's a theory I once heard, regarding interior decorating of all things, which I've found applies to other arts, and I just realized applies very much to rhyming. Basically, for interior decorating, it goes that there are 1st, 2nd and 3rd level objects. Mixing them is difficult, but follows other rules.

1st level objects are things which are natural: seashells, driftwood, flowers, etc. They may be freely mixed with 2nd or 3rd level objects.

2nd level objects are manufactured, but crude: wooden spoons, homespun blankets, hand-turned pottery bowls. They can be mixed with 1st level objects, but not with third, generally speaking, and are best when they're all from the same cultural tradition.

3rd level objects are not only manufactured, but incredibly intricate and ornate: Louis XIV furniture, Victorian mantelclocks, etc. They should not be mixed with 2nd level objects, but can be mixed with first if the first level objects are elevated to third by mixing them with a special showcase piece, as with a simple rose being placed in an elaborate vase.

Applying this theory to words, you've got the ordinary words at 1, the folksy words at 2, and the particularly fancy or ornate $10 words at 3. A basic level 1 word is something like "red." A folksy level 2 word is something like "candyapple." An elaborate level 3 word is something like "incarnadine." It looks lame to use "candyapple" alongside "incarnadine" (this is called "Bathos" in science fiction circles, an abrupt and funny change of diction) but using "red" and "candyapple" together is fine, and so is "red" and "incarnadine."

This is a rule in general for writing, but for poetry, it seems more effective for the rhymes to come on the 2nd or 3rd level words, rather than always on the first, or at least to come on some combination of the two for balance, depending on the level of diction of the poem. Unless all your words are at the first level, in which case your diction is simple, universal and easy to understand, but runs a risk of trite rhymes.

Kevin

[Tim Murphy]

Aside from the Beowulf translation, I've written exclusively in rhyme for three decades. And because so much of my work is trimeter or dimeter, I have to rhyme much "faster" than long line poets. For me, it's very much as it is for Roger, whose explication was admirably cogent. A few other observations. Our rhyme dictionary, which I used a lot in my youth and scarcely ever consult anymore, is the original Clement Wood, worth hunting for in used bookdom. Don't get the new one edited by the aptly named Ronald Bogus. I've told this anecdote before, but when we asked Wilbur whether he ever used a rhyme dictionary, he said "No, after all these years I fear I am a rhyme dictionary." That's what's happening to me. The experienced rhymer learns words to avoid, like death, wealth, self, and doesn't go there. Happily, the process Roger describes takes the mind to places it never would otherwise have ventured. I think that is why Robert Mezey, who has written in so many styles, has now come to regard rhyme as "indispensable to English lyric poetry."

[Michael Cantor]

Tim -

I’ll wager all my pentametric wealth,
the earnings from my poetry, the pelf
acquired line-by-line, the self itself -
my writer’s ego (all except my health) -

and bet that I can quickly wander where
the words that you avoid may find a breath
of rhyme and meter, dodge poetic death:
even if Tim Murphy doesn’t go there.


By the way, I have to admit I use a rhyming dictionary incessantly (but not on this one). When I'm working on something with many repeated rhymes - and I like to play with forms like ballade, villanelle and Spenserian stanzas, as well as suffering from an addiction to internal rhymes - I even make lists of potential rhyme words in advance, and try to use them to get the juices flowing.

Regards,

Michael




[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited July 18, 2002).]

[Carol Taylor]

Interesting topic, Clive. I hadn't commented before because I consider myself a weak rhymer compared to some of our other members. That is, rhyming itself is easy and natural to me. Not rhyming is more difficult than rhyming. I've rarely written free verse, even when I was trying to, because rhyme and meter insisted. But my rhymes are often bland and uninspired, what KAM would call level 1 rhymes. I use a rhyming dictionary when I need it, Clement Wood being my favorite, but that's usually when I have a line I refuse to change and really need a good rhyme for it.

Rhyming on the strong words, whether obscenity or not, is generally a good technique. But some of the cleverer rhymes are on word combinations, such as last of it/retrofit, or on verbs and adjectives and other parts of speech. I'm consciously trying to use more multisyllabic and unexpected rhyme words, and not only in light verse.

Interior decorating is a matter of taste, like any art form. My house is like my poems--full of what I like. To me it all harmonizes, but almost nothing "matches." I've seen houses professionally decorated right down to the ornaments on the coffee table and the pictures on the walls, and they all looked the same to me, sterile. Anybody or nobody could live there. I've also seen plenty of houses that reflected the just-plain-bad taste of the occupants. Given a choice, I'd suppose I'd rather live in the Stepford Wife house than the tacky one.

These generalizations are like Windows. They get the novice past some common problems but nudge the power user toward mediocrity. Sometimes an ornament or a word can be more effective simply because it stands out in an otherwise predictable context. I'd say a poet needs to find his own voice and get comfortable with it and then trust his own instincts. But until he knows the rules and the reasons behind them and feels he can break them effectively, maybe he ought to stick to cloning.

Re translating, it doesn't make sense to me that a word can be either "omitted" or "added." Are you trying to translate one word at a time?

Carol