Where have all the rhymes gone?

“Most contemporary poets take a mixed stance on free verse versus formalism. There’s a general feeling that metrical, rhyming verse strikes the ear little too harshly these days, but poets haven’t abandoned form altogether. Poets make use of subtler techniques like internal rhyme (rhyming within, rather than at the end, of lines) and slant rhymes (words that almost rhyme like “black” and “bleak”). Most poets still write with a music, but it’s far more varied (and usually more subtle) than music typical of traditional verse.

I think most poets would also agree that you don’t have to use rhyme and meter to write a great poem. Take the well-known word-thing This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams.

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

If that doesn’t protect “the beauty and precision of the English Language,” I don’t know what does.

Still find yourself a fierce proponent of poetic purity? You’re welcome to join the QES at the New Cavendish Club in London every other Thursday. And who doesn’t enjoy a brisk debate about grammatical standards! Trust me, one might ensue. The QES’s wikipedia entry—and I guarantee you they are all over their wikipedia entry—states “a commitment to standards should not preclude the possibility of grammatical change; nor does it mean, however, that change should be mindlessly celebrated for its own sake.”

Mindless celebrating! Dare they forget how they got booted from Old Cavendish!