The key to doing well at poetry is understanding that everything means something! And…that goes for the rhyme too!
Rhyme can be really important and show more than you probably realise.
Poets think incredibly carefully when crafting poems and put care and thought into every single tiny decision!
1. Rhyming Couplets
You’ve seen these a thousand times and some people would consider a poem with rhyming couplets ‘a real poem’.
They are used in nursery rhymes because they are easy to remember!
But…what could they show?
They could show a sense of innocence and joy – a little like nursery rhymes.
It may have been used to make you remember them or to show that the persona in the poem remembers something from their past clearly.
Additionally, it could even have been used to show control and order within the poem.
Example
‘London’ by William Blake uses a tightly controlled rhyme scheme with lots of rhyming couplets arguably to show the controlled, oppressed state of the world in the poem.
2. No Rhyme
It’s not a real poem…turns out it is!
Poems don’t have to rhyme and sometimes even choosing to use no rhyme can create meaning! Crazy, isn’t it!
Very often, a poet might choose to avoid rhyme to make the poem feel more natural and conversational, as if the persona is actually talking to us.
Example
In ‘Storm on the Island’ by Seamus Heaney, the poet arguably chooses not to use rhyme to create the effect that the poet is speaking to us directly and having a normal conversation. This is reinforced by informal, colloquial phrases such as ‘you know what I mean’.
3. Uneven Rhyme
And…finally we have uneven rhyme. Here we might have an occasionally rhyme every now and then and it might all feel a little bit chaotic!
The poet might have done this for a number of reasons. Perhaps to show a sense of unpredictability and chaos or to emphasise what it is they are saying.
Example
In ‘Remains’ by Simon Armitage, the poet only uses rhyme occasionally, for example: ‘here’s here in my head when I close my eyes / dug in behind enemy lines’. Arguably these occasional rhymes have been used to show the memories which the persona remembers which won’t leave his head. Like the persona, the reader can’t quite forget these either and remembers these lines because of the rhyming couplets use, reminding us of the devastating effects of war.
Now you know what rhyme could show, check out my post on what stanzas could show here!
And…there we go! Three ways that rhymes can create meanings in poems! Fascinating…isn’t it? It’s great to find meanings but remember sometime you might not always be able to find meanings in rhyme, but it’s definitely worth looking for it! For more information, check out my post on poetic devices here! Also, make sure you download by free eBook: Essay Templates!