Beyond Shakespeare: Rhyming Poetry in Modern Day
We’ve all heard it. “Sonnet 18,” “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Or maybe it’s Walt Whitman. Or maybe it’s your mother reading Goodnight Moon. Rhymes are everywhere, from advertising jingles to rap song lyrics. Megan Thee Stallion does it particularly well and she can keep a beat and dance at the same time—I can barely walk and chew gum. Rhymes are hard to avoid and if you’re interested in poetry, chances are you’ve explored rhyme in one way or another. Most of us come to poetry this way, reading Shakespeare in high school or skimming through books in the library or retweeting inspirational couplets or double-tapping Rupi Kaur.
As an editor and reader of submissions, I often encounter rhyming poems. From villanelles (19 lines, all tercets with a quatrain at the end, ABA to ABAA rhyme) to sonnets (14 lines, varying rhymes based on what version you use) to sestinas (16 lines with 6 stanzas of 6 lines each, ending in an envoi, whatever that is) there are lots of rhyming forms out there. It’s exciting to see how poets can apply these forms, which are often quite ancient, to modern day ideas—and it’s always fun to watch poets stretch themselves to fit the forms.
One of the most interesting things about traditional poetic forms is that they’re having a moment right now! The 1990s and early 2000s, even into the 2010s, have been characterized by a poetry movement called “New Formalism,” which does this exact thing: bringing traditional poetic forms together with more current cultural concepts. Books like Stephanie Rogers’ Fat Girl Forms (https://therumpus.net/2022/07/18/with-stephanie-rogers/) and poems like Courtney Lamar Charleston’s “Brown Estate, 2028, Tempranillo,” (Brown Estate, 2018 Tempranillo by Cortney Lamar Charleston – Poems | Academy of American Poets) show us how form can be used in new ways, even with contemporary subjects. Rogers’ book uses traditional forms—a different form in every poem—to explore the lived experience of being a fat woman, whereas Charleston’s poem is a traditional sonnet, handling themes of race and relationships.
Going back in time a bit to the 1960s, Theodore Roethke’s “In a Dark Time,” (In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke | Poetry Foundation) is a great example of how rhyme can push out of the traditional form and still be a powerful way to structure a poem. Roethke isn’t writing a sonnet or a villanelle; rather he has built his own rhyme scheme that is complex enough that as readers we almost don’t realize it’s there (ABCADD in the first stanza, although you could argue that “shade,” and “wood,” are slant rhymes, or a rhyme that is close to a true rhyme but not quite). This gives his poem a wonderful rhythm, particularly when read aloud, that we can appreciate for the way it gives his poem a structure to use as he accessed more emotional material; in this case he is writing about mental health and his struggle with Bipolar disorder.
It’s hard to talk about poetry without talking about Sylvia Plath, and it’s important to mention “Lady Lazarus,” when talking about rhyme (Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath | Poetry Foundation). This is not a rhyming poem, but it’s extremely rhythmic and has a lot of sound repetition and rhythmic play. Much of Plath’s most famous work is this way. She has a sonic ability which makes her work memorable, and for poets who are trying to break out of the strict rules of rhyme and into a looser style, Plath’s writing is an excellent place to start looking for inspiration.
These are all great examples of how to make poetry work for you; taking your own styles and ideas and marrying them to pre-existing structures, creating an easily accessible introduction to poetry for an emerging writer who may be intimidated staring at a blank page. There’s lots to learn from these rhyming forms and from rhyme itself. Language is an infinitely renewable resource, which is what makes writing and reading so much fun.
As an editor of a literary journal, as exciting as rhyme can be, it can also be an immediate yellow flag. Many emerging poets can see poetry as dependent on rhyme—an easy assumption for writers who haven’t explored the variety of the contemporary canon in depth. It’s common for writers to default to rhyme, because it seems like this is all that writing poetry can be, and it’s most of what we learn in school—and this is a dangerous trap to fall into. Most emerging poets work with simple rhyme schemes like ABAB, or every other line rhyming with each other, and this can be clunky for a poem, even one with deeply emotional subject matter—and it can force a writer into using words that might be awkward or ineffective, just to make sure that they’re hitting that rhyming couplet.
Writing is about intention, and intention is about craft. As poets we want to be sure of ourselves and how we approach our own work, and this means that we want to know why we make the choices we make. As emerging writers, we often write on instinct, and this can be a really generative process. But as you prepare your drafts to send to journals, why not question what propelled you to make this or that formal choice? What is motivating you and what are your influences from a poetic standpoint? Where does your poetry come from? Where is it going?
When you are ready to answer these questions, you are ready to submit. If you are interested in submitting to Palette, I recommend reviewing some of our recent publications with regards to form. We publish all kinds of poets and all kinds of forms. It’s our mission to uplift voices of all kinds, and this means moving past what has been done before and looking into the future.
Further reading:
“Bikin’ I’m Bikin’” by Shira Erlichman (sonnet)
“Self-Help” by Michael Ryan (villanelle)
“Selected Haiku by Issa” translated by Robert Hass (haiku)
Prompt: Write a rhyming couplet, then break it apart and write a new rhyming couplet with each of your two new lines. Continue this process of splitting your couplets and starting anew until you have a family tree of new couplets, find a natural place to stop (or don’t)—then combine what you have to see what you’ve written.
Example:
1. Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
2. Double, double, toil and trouble
It’s a lifelong dream to learn to juggle
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
Whenever I speak I tend to mumble
3. Double, double, toil and trouble
I want to go to the gym but it’s a struggle
It’s a lifelong dream to learn to juggle
Even the worst jokes will make me chuckle
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
I tried to flirt with him but I was too subtle
Whenever I speak I tend to mumble
But someday I’ll be part of a power couple
And so on…