Odd O'blography

Habit of Force

A recent reviewer noted that I used a forced rhyme in my poem Aging Out. The comment was more tongue in cheek than critical, and I wasn't offended (or fazed). My literary misdemeanor was to rhyme mate with faith, and I plead guilty as charged. I prefer to use natural rhymes, but I won't let a little thing like a near rhyme prevent me from completing a poem, especially if I like the lines or if the poem is just a quick bit of fluff.

There's more than one way to force a rhyme, and we each have our own opinion as to what is and isn't acceptable. Here are some more egregious examples (in my opinion) for your consideration:

Singular/plural - One word ends in 's' and the other doesn't. This is a subset of the near rhyme, and I am sometimes guilty of this one as well. Near rhymes have to be judged case by case, some work better than others. In Aging Out I also rhymed sown with home, and it escaped the reviewer's notice.

Awkard word order - This usually means twisting a sentence to put the rhyme word at the end. I did this in my poem Seize Cruise : as the lash, my lessons it taught. This is a fractured sentence, but it places the word taught at the end of the line to complete the needed rhyme. Seize Cruise was an early effort, and I didn't even realize what I'd done. I may go back and try to improve that line someday.

Breaking meter - This occurs when the stressed syllables of the rhyme don't match, as in to sing and laughing. I try to be sensitive of meter even more than rhyme, so I don't do this unless it's by ignorance of proper pronunciation.

Irrelevant line - This is quite common for beginning poets who can't think of a good next line. Something like this early draft: Tiger, tiger burning bright, can't go on an airline flight. I hope I'm not guilty of this one, but critics may not find all of my lines to be relevant, either.

Sight rhyme - This is when two words look similar, but sound different as in rough and cough. There may be such a thing as visual poetry where this would work, but it doesn't work for me.

So, should we use forced rhymes? Of course not, but I won't 'should' on your poetry if you don't 'should' on mine. I think there's room for all of us to express ourselves in a manner that feels right to us. Even if it's 'wrong' per the critics.

As Mark Twain might have said (if he'd written poetry):

"It's a poet of poor imagination who can't think of at least two ways to rhyme a word."