Today's poem of the day

I think the problem with rhyming poetry is sometimes you stop listening to the words and only listen to the rhyme and rhythm. At least that is what I find. The words get lost under a monotonous 'bo-bit-di-bo-bit-di-do, bo-bit-di-bo-bit-di-do' and I stop listening to what is being said. On the other hand, if written well, rhyming poetry can be very effective. Generally I think if the poem has an unusual yet effective rhyme structure, then it adds to the poem rather than detracting from it. One of my favourite poems (from Xanadu by Simon Armitage) uses a fairly conventional rhyme structure (abcb) but it works very well because Armitage has made the second two lines in the poem extremely short. This stops the poem from ever falling into monotony. The poem wouldn't of had the same impact on me if it wasn't for this. The rhymes all feel natural, in fact I didn't even notice the structure til I reread it for this post (I was going to give it as an example of something else!) Maybe that is another quality of a good rhyme structure, that you are not fully conscious that it is there. In the end, I think you have to be quite an accomplished poet to get away with a very conventional rhyme structure. The structure in 'RHYME, damn you!' fails in my view because it does not break up the monotony it creates.

I agree DP (she rhymed, accidentally) have a look at Sneaks work on here... very clever.

Okay well fair enough No One in their right mind would call me an accomplished poet. I use several different styles when writing poetry, and if I use rhyme I admit that I tend to give up if I catch myself forcing it to work with an old words. On the other hand sometimes it just flows that way. I guess I just have that kind of mind and some of my favourite stuff is rhyme. But before you have a go at Primate have a look at 'A brothel of sorts' pure genius...

What's that poem about bringing the mail by train? - by some Welsh guy. Anyway, it rhymes, and the rhythm mimics that of the train. Point is, it works. With regard to the obscure stuff, the point of poetry, and indeed art of other media, is to offer something that people can relate to in some way. Having experienced the product, they should feel that it has touched them, and in some way manipulated their emotions. I was chuffed to bits when someone read one of my pieces, and asked if it was about them. ( It wasn't). The obscurity bit is no problem so long as the core of the work remains accessible, even if the reader does not know the exact circumstances that provoked the piece. That's my opinion.

p.s : Thankyou for directing me to a brothel of sorts. Clever stuff, and ably demonstrating the effectiveness of couplets when used appropriately.

I think a visit to a brothel ably demonstrates the effectiveness of coupling when used appropriately.

It's a thought provoking piece and worth saying. I think there's a difference between poems which should really be in proper paragraphs and go under the name 'prose' and poems that don't rhyme. I'm going to cite G(enetically) M(odified) Hopkins - for the sheer joy of it (and cos it's sunny out): 'I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin, Dapple dawn drawn falcon in his riding.'

I disagree with your first sentence! Whilst I wouldn't wish for the chap in question to be attacked, I think his poem represents a grave misunderstanding of the people and poems he wants to pick a bone with. If there really were a vast contingency of elitists going round saying, "Rhyme is so passe!" and sniffing at anything that rhymes just because it does, he'd have a point. As it happens, the key reason for being wary of rhyming poems are that many, including this one, appear ugly and forced. Since I'm a big believer in 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' I wouldn't condemn a poem and a poet simply for writing something I find to be flawed in that way, but when they're saying in the same piece that my aversion is based on snobbery and an inability to write, then they can expect themselves to be received in kind.

No I tend to agree with Primate I did an experiment once to see how a poem that went against all my natural inclinations was received on this site. It didn't ryme, it was protentious and didn't make sense. Did very well unsuprisingly...

I'll be the first to admit that (without naming any names) many of the lit that is praised these days, including things on this very site, seems to me to succeed only in being obscure, difficult and not about anything in particular. I'll admit it actually irritates me when what I deem to be random scribblings or brainwaste gets cherry-picked or five-starred. But just because I can't find anything relevant in a piece doesn't mean no one else can appreciate it. They don't even need a reason - it's obscurity and vagueness might just feel 'right' to them. It's appeal may lie simply in the aesthetics of the language. Even the author can't deny their readers the opportunity to find something appreciable in their work that they never saw themselves - so your experiment doesn't prove anything, and the poet of 'RHYME, damn you!' is only frustrated at his own inability to understand other people's tastes. My main problem with this poem is that it defeats its own argument by proving that making rhyme a necessity can make for a clumsy piece of poetry. The rhyme's are frequently forced, the metre doesn't flow properly and the whole thing becomes monotonous very quickly, a fate which might have been avoided if he hadn't felt the need to write in rhyming couplets of almost equal length.