Once again, I am devoting this newsletter to emphasizing that poetry is NOT about RHYME but about the power of language and the persuasive quality of words when placed next to one another with an eye towards engaging the reader. Words should mean something all by themselves and then mean something entirely new, when they come together to form lines and stanzas and poems.
Rhyme must happen, when it does, naturally and there should be no sense that the line might have gone in another direction if we weren’t intent on making it rhyme with the line that came before.
I know there is comfort in rhyme as it makes us feel we’ve accomplished something, completed something. But quite the opposite is true. When we “bend” the line or restrict the line by making it rhyme, we leave the reader dissatisfied, confused, and often extremely untouched by the poem itself.
Great poetry makes us feel. Great poetry lets us see. Great poetry invites us into the poem, through the use of imagery (metaphor and simile – alliteration – interesting and unexpected line breaks – and many more poetic devices.)
Please I beg you
Do not rhyme
All the time
Believing it sublime.
Let the poem meander
Like a river on a summer day
Playing amongst rocks and overhanging
Trees let your poem be
Free!
I invite you to write an unrhymed four-to-six line poem and submit it through the Chat Room option at www.poetladykatz.com I will read every one of the submissions and respond with a comment. I will choose the very best poems from the submissions and feature a few of them on my Instagram page over the coming weeks.
Rhyme is fine – just not all the time! Write on, Susan
I am writing a hindi poem for koshish