The interest that a poem generates is directly proportional to the number of rhymes it has.
As you can tell, I'm not a literary purist by any means. With poems, I tend to share Edgar Allen Poe's opinion that didacticism isn't very enjoyable and aesthetics should be the ultimate goal. My favorite poems, almost without exception, are ones that rhyme frequently, if not at every line.
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| Immortalized in The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror special |
My absolute favorite poem is Poe's
The Raven. Grim, ghastly, macabre, and filled with epic rhymes,
The Raven has everything I, as a superficial poetry reader, ask for in a poem. If right now, you asked me to rate my vocabulary on an arbitrary scale of 1-10, I'd give it about a 6. If you asked me what it was before reading
The Raven, I would've said it was a 1-- if you're wondering how the scale works, it's logarithmic... that didn't clear anything up, did it?
The first time I heard the word
nepenthe was in this poem, and never before had I experienced the tinkling foot-falls of Seraphin on the tufted floor. It hadn't crossed my wildest fancy to ask whether there was balm in Gilead, yet I found myself imploring the answer to this question along with the narrator. I felt the wind rustling through the curtains, the bust of Pallas watching morosely as the scene unfolded, the whispers of the lost Lenore. It's a testament to Poe's writing ability that he was able to make a 13-year old boy feel all this, and even now, 4 years later, sustain that feeling of apprehension and terror.
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"Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never-nevermore."' |
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Another one of my favorite poems is Walt Whitman's
O Captain, My Captain!. I never heard this poem before watching the movie
Dead Poet's Society in English class. I slept through most of it, but woke up in time to see the children stand up on their desks in a show of solidarity and recite the opening lines to Walt Whitman's famous ode to Lincoln.
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
See. Lots and lots of rhymes. Walt Whitman was pretty much a genius. He makes me feel epic just reading his poem, as if I had accomplished something. Rarely do I feel such joy in proving my literacy.
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| The 20th century version of Lil' Wayne |
These poems are a lot better than the emotional, sappy poems that pervade today, that have no appreciation for the beauty of the English language or any of its intricacies. I'm not saying it's necessary to rhyme when you write a poem, that's just a matter of taste for me. But if you're writing a poem, don't think you're the shit because you wrote something along the lines of:
Death,
It consumes me
Even Emily Dickinson couldn't pull off that shit. I've got no problem with people writing these poems or sharing them with the world, but it's the pretentious attitude behind a lot of them that is so unappealing to me (yeah, I know, this rant is making me seem pretty pretentious myself). A lot of great writers didn't know the technique behind their writing (more did), but they were able to communicate ideas effectively. Don't write a poem that has a lot of random spaces and no capitalization and think you're a Poet Grand Master (third highest rank in poetry hierarchy behind Poetry Wizard and Poetry God) just because you've made something "different". Maybe the reason no one uses those techniques is because they suck for getting ideas across or giving your poem meaning. If you're open to criticism about your writing, then none of this is for you. I guess this applies to "poetry douches", the equally arrogant counterparts of the "music douches" my friend knows so well.
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| All rants, please slow to a halt, then turn around and go back into the dark caverns from whence you came. |
As of late, my blogs have started out happy, then ended up more serious. I should plan these out more instead of just writing.
Read Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, it's a great poem.
As a side note, this has nothing to do with you, the two people who actually read this blog. I'm sure if I read your poems, they would be both interesting and enjoyable.
