Rhythm and Rhyme (submission to Poetry Pub, Wattpad)

©May '17, Olan L. Smith

I am asked to speak about rhyme and meter and how it has an effect on specific poems, but I will start with how rhythm and rhyme affect the soul of the reader. Since we are born our mother's sing or read to us nursery rhymes with the "beat," that penetrates our sub consciousness, and rouses our psyche so we perk up when we here a familiar rhythm, rhyme or beat; it builds up and constantly runs at an unconscious level, much like our heart's on beat. I hear people say, "I don't like poems or poetry" but I see them yell and dance at a concert, and I know they are lying, not only to me but to themselves, because the words they yell to, and rhythm they dance to is poetry; a song is a poem put to music. A poem read aloud can do the same thing to the spine as an orchestra will, it can send an ascending chill up from the tailbone to the crown and make you stand and applaud. That is what rhythm and rhyming does to specific styles of poetry, it makes a connection to the unconscious mind, to the heart and it causes us jump for joy. Listen to great speakers; they are masters of rhythm that touch the soul of the listeners. If you master rhythm and rhyme you will have followers waiting to read you next publication, because they know in some way you will connect with their own beating heart; lub-DUB, lub-DUB.

Trochaic meter (syllable beat) is DUB-dub, DUB-dub and is the opposite rhythm of the iamb(ic). We will start with trochaic, or DUB-dub, or stressed-unstressed used in most nursery rhymes. A trochaic foot (monometer) consists of DUB-dub). Two trochee feet (diameter) would then be: DUB-dub, DUB-dud; three trochee feet (trochaic trimeter) would have three feet of DUB-dub, DUB-dub, DUB-dub, tetrameter is four metric feet, pentameter is five metric feet, hexameter is six metric feet, and so on. This metric enumeration of mono, dia, tri, tetra, penta, hexa, heptameter, etc, apply to all the types of stressed syllabic schemes mentioned below:

Iamb (dub-DUB),

Trochee (DUB-dub),

Spondee (DUB-DUB),

Pyrrhic (dub-dub)

Dactyl (DUB-dub-dub),

Anapest (dub-dub-DUB),

Amphibrach (dub-DUB-dub)

.

To me, the rhythm is the heart of the poem, the pulse and the core of the poem that causes us to connect to it both on a conscious level and the unconscious at the same time. Remember, these are just terms, but put to use in your poetry they evoke the beat. The terms seem confusing because of the specialized language, and it is confusing if you say otherwise you are lying to yourself. Does it get easier and less daunting? Yes, and with practice you will not have to look of these terms, but I keep my poetry sources close to me, as well as keeping my rhyming dictionary and thesaurus nearby. Someone will say, I don't want something boxing me in, and I will stay with free verse, but writing constraint poems will make you a better free verse poet. Free verse gives freedom to the poet to add rhythm if you want, and to place rhymes where you want; after all it is unconstrained poetry, but it doesn't have to be chaotic verses, after all you want your free verse poetry to flow smoothly, and you will want to apply the vast tools of poetry to your free verse poem but don't become a syllable counter, it is not important to keep the count strictly, mix it up. Even Shakespeare would mix it up in a sonnet, so you can too.

How do you use rhyme in constraint poetry? Simply follow the rules of the constraint. For example sonnets come in varieties and they come with different rhyme schemes. Rhymes schemes in poetry are too vast to cover in an article so this is where I tell you, again, to keep a resource file of reliable sites that give you accurate rules for the constraint you want to pen. I usually use educational sites like byu.edu and etc. Find a good rhyming dictionary to keep in you top tabs for easy access such a Rhymer.com. Why use rhymes at all, because it makes it easier to remember. Since the time of camps fires in prehistory humans have passed their tradition and history down to the next generations by means of storytelling to spoken in time to the drum beating, and most of the stories were consisted of rhythm and rhyme. As time advanced to the days of writing the stories were preserved. Even in my early childhood people could recite the Iliad by heart. Before TV and radio people would gather in living rooms and tell stories, read novels and that was their entertainment. With TV, Radio, and now computers we have profession storytellers broadcasting stories over the air, via satellites, and cables. Some are prose, some are free verse. Some are songs that rhyme, others are spoken such as rap, poetry reading, and spoken word jams, plus―remember the musicals? Rhyming all the time to the end. In conclusion decades after you first heard a song the tune returns to run through your mind, and then what will you remember best, the words? Perhaps. The rhyme? Perhaps, or will you remember the beat!

Name the meter of this favorite:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.