This month’s Poet’s Corner continues themes of surprising rhymes with the idea of over-simplifying. What’s that? How does it work? What happens is that rhymes are heavy, overall rhythm has little variety, and the effect is often called “doggerel,” irregular in rhythm and rhyme (dictionary definition). “Boringly regular” could be added to the definition. Chaucer uses this device on purpose, with the result that the Canterbury pilgrims, riding to the rhythm of their horses, soon request a stop to the poem, The Tale of Sir Thopas. Here’s a sample in modern English.
Listen, lords, with good intent,
And I’ll tell you a true event,
Of bliss and happiness;
About a knight who was a gent,
In battle and in tournament,
His name was Sir Thopas.
I used a version of overly heavy rhyme for comic effect in a poem titled “A Nose for Prose.” The first few lines go like this.
Got a nose for prose?
Sniff it out!
No doubt, in the tomes of poems
You’ll find some.
Later, “find some” rhymes with phrases such as “bind some” and “blind some.”
Why?
Over time it has been my happy experience to have known two fine literary critics, Dorothy Van Ghent and John W. Aldridge. They were both dynamic teachers, fascinating conversationalists, and people with insight about writing and how writing works.
Another personal trait among literary critics is that they usually develop “high standards,” that is, well informed opinions about worthwhile writing, conditioned by individual personality. The individual personality part can lead to differences in point of view – harmonious or not.
As you can tell by some of my writing, I play fast and loose with what is traditionally considered “poetic form.” From my “Painted Poetry” to my “American Haiku” to my long poems inspired by Robert Browning and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, my rhymes, rhythms, and line lengths are not “regular.” My poems don’t necessarily have the same number of syllables per line, and so on.
After getting to know John W. Aldridge a bit, and having read a lot of his writing, I put together four poems more or less about his ideas and sent him a copy. His response was polite and somewhat appreciative, but he commented at one point that my poetry was sometimes “so close to prose.”
In all fairness, his phrase was not exactly “so close to prose,” but that’s how I remembered it — and I was not appreciative. “Whaddya mean ‘so close to prose’?” I said to myself, gnashing my teeth. “This is a poem! In a poem I can bloody well do whatever I want!” Or, at least, that is pretty much how I felt when I was thinking about his letter. (This was back in the days when we sent actual letters through the U.S. Mail.) I could talk to his actual signature!
Listen, lords, with good intent,
And I’ll tell you a true event,
Of bliss and happiness;
About a knight who was a gent,
In battle and in tournament,
His name was Sir Thopas.
I used a version of overly heavy rhyme for comic effect in a poem titled “A Nose for Prose.” The first few lines go like this.
Got a nose for prose?
Sniff it out!
No doubt, in the tomes of poems
You’ll find some.
Later, “find some” rhymes with phrases such as “bind some” and “blind some.”
Why?
Over time it has been my happy experience to have known two fine literary critics, Dorothy Van Ghent and John W. Aldridge. They were both dynamic teachers, fascinating conversationalists, and people with insight about writing and how writing works.
Another personal trait among literary critics is that they usually develop “high standards,” that is, well informed opinions about worthwhile writing, conditioned by individual personality. The individual personality part can lead to differences in point of view – harmonious or not.
As you can tell by some of my writing, I play fast and loose with what is traditionally considered “poetic form.” From my “Painted Poetry” to my “American Haiku” to my long poems inspired by Robert Browning and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, my rhymes, rhythms, and line lengths are not “regular.” My poems don’t necessarily have the same number of syllables per line, and so on.
After getting to know John W. Aldridge a bit, and having read a lot of his writing, I put together four poems more or less about his ideas and sent him a copy. His response was polite and somewhat appreciative, but he commented at one point that my poetry was sometimes “so close to prose.”
In all fairness, his phrase was not exactly “so close to prose,” but that’s how I remembered it — and I was not appreciative. “Whaddya mean ‘so close to prose’?” I said to myself, gnashing my teeth. “This is a poem! In a poem I can bloody well do whatever I want!” Or, at least, that is pretty much how I felt when I was thinking about his letter. (This was back in the days when we sent actual letters through the U.S. Mail.) I could talk to his actual signature!