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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2904 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 23, 2025

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Do you find that the rhyming in a poem makes the meaning of the idea more clear or less clear? To me, any rhyming seems to interfere with my immediate ability to grasp the meaning, so it’s worse at conveying meaning that non-rhyming poetry or prose.

Poems must rhyme. The purpose of poetry is the structure. I'll mention my two favorite poems by Robert Frost. The first, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, is famous enough that I won't post it here, but the AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD rhyme scheme leads you from one stanza to the next, and nicely concludes the poem.

The other is simply masterful. It's a poem for children.

For Allan,
Who wanted to see how I wrote a poem:

Among these mountains, do you know,
I have a farm, and on it grow
A thousand lovely Christmas trees.
I'd like to send you one of these,
But it's against the laws.
A man may give a little boy
A book, a useful knife, a toy,
Or even a rhyme like this by me
(I wrote it just like this, you see)
But nobody may give a tree,
Excepting Santa Claus.

This is a well crafted poem. I adore how such a simple poem is constructed. It sings, and I love it.

Rhymes make words into music, and turn prose into poetry. The best poems have both rhymes and meter, such that the syllables (and emphasis, and structure) make the beat and the rhymes (and alliteration, and assonance, and consonance) make melody and harmony.

It is beautiful adornment of language.

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