Rhyming Poetry vs. Free Verse

There is a common misconception out there, subscribed to by many, that I want to get out of the way right now:

POETRY DOES NOT NEED TO RHYME.

For real.  I'm not kidding.  

Poetry is "writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm."  Thus saith Merriam-Webster.  Does that say anything about rhyming?  No, it does not.

Poetry does not need to rhyme.

But it can.

When the words at the end of each line rhyme with each other, we call that end rhyme.  When there are words within a line that rhyme, we call that internal rhyme.  You're undoubtedly familiar with end rhymes because a lot of poetry and music use them.  A famous example of an internal rhyme scheme is "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe.  Here's a sample to show you what I mean:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, 

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— 

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door— 

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— 

         Only this and nothing more.” 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; 

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow 

From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— 

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— 

         Nameless here for evermore.

That poem has both internal and end rhyming going on, as well as a very definite rhythm/meter, and wow, is it easy to recite aloud!  Try just reading those lines aloud and feel how they roll right off your tongue.  Rhyme is amazing for helping poetry be easy to remember and recite, and that's a huge reason why so many ancient poems rhyme -- because poetry was meant to be said aloud around a campfire, and you learned the poetry by hearing someone else say it.  Think how much easier it is to memorize lyrics to a song or hymn than it is to memorize a paragraph of prose of a similar length!

Poetry that does not rhyme is generally called free verse.  Free verse does not follow a pattern of rhyming or rhythm.  It can have three syllables in one line and twenty in the next, and never rhyme at all.  Walt Whitman is generally considered the father of modern free verse, as he was a Really Big Deal back in the mid-to-late-1800s.  Here's a poem of his as an example of free verse:

"When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"

by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer, 

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, 

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, 

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, 

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, 

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, 

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Not a rhyme to be found, but it's still poetry.  Like I said in our introductory lesson, most poetry is meant to capture a moment or a feeling or a memory or an image.  Like a snapshot or a portrait, not a movie or a book.  (We exclude epic poetry and ballads there, which do tell a longer story, but they're not something we'll really get into in this class.)  Whitman isn't telling us about what he learned in the astronomy lecture, or about every time he's gone outside and looked at the stars -- he's telling you about one evening when he got sick of listening to some guy get all pedantic about the science of stars, so he went outside and looked up at the stars and enjoyed their perfect silence.  One evening.  One time.  That is what poetry is so amazing at.

Some people insist that without rhymes, you just have prose, not poetry.  To them, I would say, are the Psalms poetry?  Do the Psalms rhyme?

In the original Hebrew, sometimes there is rhyming inside individual psalms, though more often internal rhymes than end rhymes.  You see, Hebrew poetry relies on parallelism and repetition, not on rhyme or meter.  They'll be something like this:

God forgives me

I am a sinner

God has forgiven me

Even though I have sinned

or

God is merciful and just

He forgives us freely

I am freely forgiven

Mercy and justice come from God

It's definitely poetry -- and we know the Psalms were originally set to music -- but it doesn't rhyme.  Next time someone tells you poems have to rhyme to truly be considered poetry, just throw the Psalms into the conversation like a grenade and watch them scramble to defend their position.

ANYway...

Rhyme is a useful tool for writing poetry.  So is rhythm/meter.  So is alliteration.  So is enjambment (remember that one from yesterday?).  They're good building blocks, but none of them define what is and isn't a poem.  

So there.

Today, we have Discussion Questions!

1.  How do YOU define poetry?

2.  Do you have any favorite poets or poems?