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City: San Francisco
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In the morning the city
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Spreads its wings
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Making a song
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In stone that sings.
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In the evening the city
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Goes to bed
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Hanging lights
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About its head.
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Langston Hughes
14
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-
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The Toaster
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A Silver-scaled Dragon with jaws flaming red
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Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread.
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I hand him fat slices, and then one by one
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He hands them back when he sees they’re done.
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William Jay Smith
15
Rhyme is probably the one device most associated with poetry by young people. It is an enjoyable and easily recognized part of the poetic experience, yet students must be cautioned that it is only ONE element of poetry, and not a prerequisite of the genre. As the two examples above clearly demonstrate, rhyme is certainly not used alone! In both poems, word choice, rhythm, and figurative language all join forces with rhyme to portray the image. The city is personified, having “wings” and a “head,” as is the toaster with “jaws.” The choice of those particular phrases make the images unique. The regular rhythm, mostly iambic, of “The Toaster” sets us up for the clever end rhyme.
Rhyming is as much a part of our growing up experiences as is rhythm. We find rhymes not only in Mother Goose, but in childhood games such as this irreverent ball-bouncing game:
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Judge, judge, tell the judge
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Mama has a baby!
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It’s a boy full of joy,
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Papa’s going crazy!
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Wrap it up in tissue paper,
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Tell the judge we’ll see him later.
Other common uses of rhymes include greeting cards and singing telegrams, which might feature lines like “Candles in the cake/ Are a nice way to celebrate.”
Before attempting a definition of rhyme, we must carefully examine what rhymes and what doesn’t. A perfect rhyme features words which have similar vowel sounds and consonant
endings
, but different consonant sounds
preceding
the vowel. For, war, thor nor, and abhor are perfect rhymes.
For, sport, morn, cork, and lord are not. Also, identical sounds technically cannot be considered perfect rhymes; for, fore, four, and metaphor are not perfect rhymes.
False or imperfect rhymes are common in the work of young writers and popular song writers. Combinations such as moon/bloom, smile/child, shame/pain, mind/time, and together/forever are time-worn examples of imperfect rhyme found in many of our favorite tunes. Perfect rhyme is more consistently discovered in classical poetry.
The teacher should certainly take note of and explain the differences between perfect and false rhyme. However, the teacher must be extremely careful not to discourage students’ first efforts on this account.
Both internal rhyme (words in the same line rhyming) and end rhyme (words at the end of lines rhyming) are always partly anticipated, yet partly unexpected. Hearing such words causes the satisfaction of recognition as well as the pleasure of surprise. Imagine the bored and disappointed reactions received if “Old King Cole/ Was a merry old man”?
Rhyme, in both poetry and lyrics, is often coupled with repetition—the rhyming lines being repeated for emphasis (i.e. “bad girls, sad girls”). The blend of rhyme and repetition is central to the enjoyment of shaping and selecting words. Serious poems, as well as nursery rhymes, are animated by echoes of repeated refrains:
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Strolling on the green grass,
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____
____
____
____
____
____
____
green grass,
-
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
green grass,
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Strolling on the green grass,
-
A husky, dusky day.
There are two main divisions of rhyme: masculine and feminine. The masculine rhyme relies on single syllables: play, slay, weigh. The feminine rhyme encompasses all words or word combinations of two or more rhyming syllables: gay fellow, quite yellow, so mellow. Note, too, that although the rhyme could read gay fellow, hey! fellow, play-fellow, it would still be acceptable as perfect rhyme as long as the beginnings and endings rhyme.
Masculine rhyme is usually associated with strong rhymes. In Gerald Gould’s poem, “Fallen Cities,” the rhythmic repetition of the first rhyme in the last line of each verse, does add emphasis to the content:
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I gathered with a careless hand
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A little heap of golden sand;
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____
And, as I saw it, in my sight
-
____
Awoke a vision brief and bright.
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A city in a pleasant land.
16
Feminine rhyme, on the other hand, is less choppy and therefore adds fluency. Feminine rhyme can often break the monotony of the harsher masculine form. The combination, therefore, leads to a more musical flow. The following selection demonstrates a combination which creates a wonderful effect. The two stanzas are from Louis Goldberg’s “City Under Snow”:
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Under dazzling wonder bowed,
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The city, anchored in a cloud,
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Is heaped with white and glittering glory
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From some immemorial story ...
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**
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On a star immaculate,
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Where beauty’s burden is too great;
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Where beauty’s burden is unbroken
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With the dazzling touch of token ...
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**
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Let no single word be spoken.
17
The rhyme scheme here is noteworthy. The entire poem uses couplets (aa bb cc), or pairs of rhyming lines, except for the final three-line feminine echo: unbroken-token-spoken. The words chosen seem to add a hush by the mere repetition of the longer sounds. Familiar rhyme schemes include couplets and the abab alternation. An aabba scheme adds even more continuity, as seen in “Fallen Cities.” Rhyme patterns are a real challenge, especially for those students who are more artisan than artist.
Exercise 1: Rhyme Time
Directions
Find as many perfect rhymes as possible for the following words:
Metal
|
Weary
|
Wage
|
Discover
|
Sounded
|
Frighten
|
Weather
|
Sorrow
|
Sing
|
City
|
**********
Exercise 2: Move Into The Groove
Directions
Here are several sets of rhymed words. Write out couplets that end in each pair.
1.
|
move/groove
|
2.
|
gas/class
|
3.
|
batter/clatter
|
4.
|
beat/street
|
5.
|
sin/grin
|
**********
Exercise 3: Hitting The Road—On Your Own!
Directions
The next step is to make up couplets on one specific idea. This time, only one word of the rhymed pair is given. You must come up with the second one yourself.
1.
|
litter
|
2.
|
journey
|
3.
|
tread
|
4.
|
time
|
5.
|
feature
|
Exercise 4: Name Game
Directions
A Clerihew is a short, humorous poem about a famous person with a funny name. The second line must rhyme with the name, for example:
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William Makepeace Thackery
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Was often accused of quackery.
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He wrote
Vanity Fair
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While inside of a bear.
Try writing clerihews with these names:
1.
|
Kareem Abdul-Jabar
|
2.
|
James Earl Carter
|
3.
|
Reggie Jackson
|
4.
|
Howard Cosell
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5.
|
Your own name or a friend’s
|
**********
Exercise 5: Easy ABAB
Directions
Instead of rhyming every two lines, you can rhyme every other line. This poem by Claude McKay is an example:
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Harlem Dancer
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Applauding youths danced with young prostitutes
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And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
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Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
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Blown by black players on a picnic day.
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She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
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The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
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To me she seemed a proudly swaying palm
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Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
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Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
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Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
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The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
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Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
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But looking at her falsely smiling face,
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I knew her self was not in that strange place.
18
Try writing a poem with a rhyme scheme like this one.
**********
Exercise 6: Assonance
Directions
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Notice the “i” sounds in this poem (remember it’s the sound, not the spelling that counts):
-
T
y
ger, t
y
ger, burning br
i
ght
-
I
n the forests of the n
i
ght ...
-
-
William Blake
19
For each of the following, write a phrase or pair of words that use assonance:
1.
|
winter
|
2.
|
taxi
|
3.
|
computer
|
4.
|
rain
|
5.
|
dance
|
Note
See “Figurative Language” for further information on assonance.
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Appreciation/Analysis
Two songs and one poem, in addition to the others already cited in this chapter, are offered for examination in terms of their use of rhyme, and their themes; Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City,” and Charles Malam’s “Steam Shovel.” The questions below also review not only the four poems previously mentioned in this chapter, but also the songs and poems referred to in “Word Choice” and “Rhythm.” In this way students should begin to have an understanding of the interrelatedness of poetic devices. Also, by continually comparing the thematic elements of these works, students will learn to see vital connections not only in literature, but in life.
Questions
1.
|
Tell the theme of the two songs in your own words. Find two quotes in each to prove what you say.
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2.
|
In this section, the contrast is most obvious between perfect and false rhyme. Find five examples of perfect thyme and five of imperfect rhyme.
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3.
|
Tell the rhyme scheme in “Steam Shovel” and “Living for the City.”
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4.
|
What verbs in each piece really help sustain its meaning?
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5.
|
Pick one of the two songs in this chapter and compare it to one of the three selections in the last chapter in terms of
rhythm
.
|
6.
|
Discuss the types of rhyme found in “Bad Girls” (feminine/masculine, internal/end, AB/AA).
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7.
|
How are the main figures in “Weary Blues” and “God Bless the Child” similar? How are they different? Use quotes to prove your point.
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8.
|
What image of the city do you see in Goldberg’s “City Under Snow”? Pick out specific words which create this picture. How is the view of the city different in Wonder’s “Living for the City”? Pick out specific words to support your ideas.
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9.
|
In what ways are the “bad girls” like the “harlem dancer?” Use at least one quote from each.
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10.
|
Explain what things are compared in “City: San Francisco,” “Steam Shovel,” and “The Toaster.” Does the rhythm support the choice of image?
|
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The hand that held my wrist
-
Was battered on one knuckle;
-
At every step you missed
-
My right ear scraped a buckle.
The alternating abab rhyme scheme is demonstrated in the third stanza of Roethke’s “My Papa’s Wa1tz.” The rhyme in this verse is perfect. Here, however, a two-syllable feminine rhyme is used to create the same broken effect as that of the concluding imperfect rhyme in the first stanza. “Dizzy” and “easy” purposely do not match; nor do the “missed” steps of the dancer. “Knuckle” and “buckle” have a similarly jarring effect. They add to the contrast between the illusions of the father and the sad reality that is understood by the frowning mother in the second verse.