Celery raw develops the jaw
But celery stewed is more quietly chewed
- “Celery” My favorite poem
I’ll never forget my 7th grade poetry class. I remember immersing myself in the world of rhymes, fascinated by the numberless similarities that pattern our words.
Look at my puppy all sweet and shy
If it were dead I’m sure I’d cry
And Look how it licks my hand so sweet
Wagging its tail and patting its feet
–
Why so innocent? How so small?
When his spirit dances above them all
And when I think of him before falling asleep
I like to drink orange juice and sit on the couch.
This is the only issue I have with poetry: When it doesn’t rhyme, it sounds HORRIBLE!
During the past two weeks, I studied poetry in my college English class. And as I examined the poems, I nearly fainted…
Because nothing rhymed!
Consider the following poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
WHERE’S THE RHYMING? The greatest element of poetry?
Obviously “cow”, “plough” and “how” rhyme, but look how far apart the words are! The gaps are too big for anything to sound cool!
Obviously there are elements of poetry other than rhyming, but the rhymes are what make or break the poem; and in my opinion, there are too many poems that lack this basic element.
To me, Hopkin’s poem sounds equivalent to:
Roses are red; violets are blue
I poop, you poop
Which means our digestive systems probably work
Do humans really consider this art? Is it just me? Or is my brain incapable of comprehending such complicated word structures?
In my misery (and confusion), I wrote the following:
What is happening to my mind?
Will it surely fade
Away from all existence?
Or stored inside my brain?
–
Without the rhyme it is a crime
To write away the line
That brings about the harsher reads
And slowly fades my mind
–
There is a larger difference
It will always be
From minds, brains and other things
For minds you cannot see
–
I haven’t rhymed in some time
I’m sure you figured that
But what’s the prob? I have a blog
Which fosters that for me
Seriously… I wrote all this in like ten minutes.
So what do you guys think?
Is poetry defined by the rhyme?
Or is it something else?
That takes our breath away
And surely makes the count?
Comments are welcomed!
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