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
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