"Why, That Don't Rhyme!"

Questions of rhyme arise every time we seize the end of a line in our teeth and shake it for relief.

Or something.

Years ago, teaching in the Missouri State Prison, I read the class a poem from the textbook. I've forgotten the poem, something British I think, but I've never forgotten the student who said, "I don't like poetry that don't rhyme." The poem did rhyme; he just didn't hear the rhymes as I read. These inmates were intelligent, articulate men, too, but I didn't hammer each rhyme as I read.

For many people, poetry is that form of discourse that rhymes. No rhyme = no poem.

The weave of sounds in a poem is much more subtle than the clanging of obvious rhymes. (Okay, that's pejorative: good rhymes don't clang.) However, the play of sounds that are closely related, the patterns of alliteration, assonance, consonance, and shifts in stress make a good poem much more subtle than the scansion one might render in a simple, abstract notation of weak - strong syllables and end-rhymes.

For instance, here's the notation for an iambic pentameter rhyming couplet:

    x / | x / | x / | x / | x / A
    x / | x / | x / | x / | x / A

            (x = unstressed, / = stressed, | marks the boundaries of the feet, A is the poor old rhyme.)

What does that tell you? It could analyze any poem written in this form; this kind of notation is so abstract it obscures the concrete actuality of a poem.

The ghazal is essentially a form of rhyming poetry, although an unrhymed ghazal is possible (or so I think). Surprisingly, there's a question as to what counts as a rhyme. Friday evening, 13 July, The Ghazal Page published an essay on rhyme by David Jalajel: The Arabic Qâfiyah & English Rhyme – The Use of "Microrhyme" for Adapting Arabic Poetic Forms into English. I'm not going to summarize here what David says, but I strongly recommend his essay, along with another by him. These essays deal with concrete details of Arabic poetics and explores how they may be used in English ghazals.

I plan to post more on rhyme and sound-patterns. In the meantime, seize the line in your teeth and shake it until it sings.