Brian, your metrical mixing and matching showcases the range of resources available in formal verse, and one could make the case that mixing perfect and near rhyme does likewise. (I know that some people are inclined to take a harder line than I in such matters, and that perfect rhyme is sometimes considered essential for light verse.)

Brian, you do go on. I take it back, honest. And I'll pay you a trillion pounds. You are one of the best rhymers I know.

By the way, fellas, isn't a perfect rhyme when you rhyme the same word?

Oh and thanks Jayne. I knew someone nice would do it.

John, I was just teasing you. But seriously, if you can find another rhyme for 'seraphically' that isn't one of the -graphically familly, I'll let you keep the trillion pounds - well, most of it.

But seraphically and graphically are a perfect rhyme, Brian. The final stress of one begins with "r" and the final stress of the other is kicked off with a "gr" -- I think those are considered distinct, and they certainly are distinct to my ear. (Cf. perfect rhymes like kill/skill, tall/stall).

The lady angels beamed seraphically
And shared their angel loving sapphicly.

Kazoom!

He stretched his neck giraffically.

The contortionist twisted her limbs taffically.

He regarded the pint quaffically.

They performed the task not wholeheartedly, but halfically.

The audience responded to the comedian with a few chuckles, but not belly-laughically.

The producers raised money for their film Zach Braffically.

Instead of charging like a bull, Ferdinand gamboled calfically.

Of course they are, Roger. The problem is that in the first line, 'dogmatically' is not a perfect rhyme for the other two words, and I don't think any of Chris's ingenious neologisms, nor John's suggestion, could be used to replace it.

Hi Roger,

I haven't attempted this one yet, but I thought I'd just point out, as no one else has, that you have a typo in L1 (post #8) :

There once was a girl from Nantucket
Who told me, "Your free verse can suck it!"
With a form-friendly curse
She rolled up my free verse,
And I still can't believe where she stuck it.

Jayne

Rhyme gets you noticed, but it’s just a flyer
To get the punters to the proper stuff.
It’s to free verse a poet should aspire;
Rhyming and chiming isn’t strong enough
To carry messages of any weight
And real involvement of the here and now
Demands the rawness of the naked state
Of language. One can just imagine how
Imaginative thought would feel the pinch
Of being squeezed into a villanelle
Whose rigid metre wouldn’t give an inch
When freedom’s feet demanded space to swell.
Who in their right mind would contrive a sonnet
If anything worthwhile depended on it?


If I chopped this up and made it look like FV, do you think I'd get away with it - or rather NOT get away with it, if you get my drift?

Ann, why don't you make the FV version and add it to your post above for easy comparison? And don't forget you've got an extra two lines to play with.