[Max Goodman]

Matthew Zapruder's Why Poetry (possibly due to my own ignorance) rocked my world. The most interesting of many things I got out of it is this claim about his free verse. (I have holds on two of his books at the library, but I haven't yet been able to read his poems to see whether his intention comes through for me.)

Originally Posted by Matthew Zapruder

I secretly think my poems actually do rhyme. It's just that the rhyme is "conceptual"; that is, made not of sounds but of ideas that accomplish what the sounds do in formal poetry: to connect elements that one wouldn't have expected...

Edit in: Zapruder didn't post that here. I goofed in setting up the quote. I assume that's not the source of Jayne's confusion.

[Jayne Osborn]

Originally Posted by Matthew Zapruder
I secretly think my poems actually do rhyme. It's just that the rhyme is "conceptual"; that is, made not of sounds but of ideas that accomplish what the sounds do in formal poetry: to connect elements that one wouldn't have expected...

Eh?????

Jayne

[Orwn Acra]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

Eh?????

Jayne

The words rhyme in their concept:

There once was a person from Limerick
who wanted to write a sonnet.
The syllable count
he forgot to calculate
and wrote a haiku.

[John Isbell]

Or this:

There was a young man from Paree
Who was stung on the neck by a wasp.
When asked if it hurt
He said no, not a lot
I'm so glad it wasn't a hornet.

Cheers,
John

[Roger Slater]

That's just bullshit, if you ask me. He's recognizing some of what rhyming does, and because some of that, broadly speaking, can also be done without rhyme (making unexpected connections) he is claiming that he actually does rhyme. No, he doesn't. It strikes me as defensive, words spoken by a man who feels a bit inferior perhaps at his inability to rhyme and so he is trying to compensate by claiming that he really is rhyming, in a way.

[Simon Hunt]

Max--I had my mind blown in a similar way a long time ago when, in an introductory class on American Sign Language, a student gave a report on poetry in ASL and said that poetry in sign languages often does have a concept of rhyme but, since it can't be based in sound, pursues it in similarity of "movement, handshape, location, palm orientation, or other components of signs" (here I quote the work of an ASL writer who expresses this better than I could...). This seems to me more precise an analogue to sonic rhyme than "conceptual rhyme," which could mean almost anything, but I'm keeping an open mind...

[RCL]

Here's an older thread on conceptual rhyming.

https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showt...nceptual+rhyme

[Mark McDonnell]

Almost what Roger said, but it sounds pretentious more than defensive.

There's an element of Humpty Dumptyism in this – of Mr Zapruder deciding that a word can mean whatever he wants it to mean. Then again, I can imagine the sort of thing he's getting at. But I wouldn't call it rhyme, because rhyme is already a thing and this just muddies the water. Call it 'conceptual matching'.

But, I'd have to read some of his poetry I suppose before passing judgement. It could be brilliant and make me go 'ah, that's what he means.

[Matt Q]

Zapruder is not inventing to the term "conceptual rhyme". It's a pre-existing and well-established term. And from the explanation he gives, it looks like he's using it correctly.

To me, it's not obviously bullshit or pretentious to use the correct terminology for a poetic device in a book about poetry.

[Mark McDonnell]

Well, Matt, when I google 'poetry device conceptual rhyme' I get nothing. And it doesn't appear in Poetry Foundation's fairly exhaustive 'Glossary of Poetic Terms' either, under 'conceptual' or 'rhyme'. I'm not being a deliberate philistine, and I can grasp the concept. But I'd like to see it in his poetry to be convinced that what he's saying isn't just a lot of fluff.

I'm happy to be convinced!