Rhymes can bring music to your poems, make them easier to remember and more fun. While not all poems need rhymes, those that do seem more spectacular due to their complex composition. If you want to try your hand at rhyming poetry, you can learn the basics of rhymes and the meter, as well as learn some tips on how to write verses that aren't just rhymes.
Steps
Part 1 of 3: Learning to Know the Rhymes and the Metro
Step 1. Write a list of perfect rhymes
Words rhyme when their end parts and their sound are the same. There are many different types of rhyme, but the perfect rhymes are those of the "bread / dog" type, made up of identical combinations of vowels and consonants. If you want to write a rhyming poem, a good way to start is to practice rhyming. Start with one word and find a good number of rhymes. Some words will be easier than others.
- Dog, for example, rhymes perfectly with bread, vane, sane, wool, frogs, romans and many other words. Try writing lists as an exercise.
- If you have a theme in mind, try starting with a few words that can make a good poem and find suitable rhymes.
Step 2. Learn about other types of rhymes
While some skilfully used perfect rhymes are the hallmark of a poetic masterpiece, trying to create only perfect rhymes can make poetry seem mechanical and not very fluid. A good poem shouldn't include rhymes just to finish off the poem, but it should use them to add color and emphasis to the words. For this purpose you can use the most flexible rhymes:
- Rhyme hypermetry or excess: one of the two words is considered without the final syllable (for example: pawing / Alps).
- Consonances (a type of imperfect rhyme): different vowels and the same consonants (for example: amore / amaro).
- Forced rhymes: a rhyme between similar words but whose syllables have different accents (for example: child / acino).
- Rhymes for the eye: a rhyme between words written in the same way but with a different sound (example: referral / mandò).
Step 3. Pay attention to the number of feet in each direction
Rhyming poems don't just include rhyming words. Most of these poems also pay attention to the meter of the lines, or the number of stressed and unstressed syllables. These are quite complex concepts, but with simple principles that can help you create a solid foundation from which to start.
- It counts the number of syllables in a verse, like the famous Hamlet phrase "To be or not to be, that is the question". This verse contains ten. Now, read the verse aloud and try to notice the stressed and unstressed syllables. Read it emphasizing accents.
- Shakespeare's famous verse is an example of an iambic pentameter, that is a verse composed of five feet (penta), made from an unstressed syllable followed by an accented one: “To BE or NOT to BE, that IS the question”.
- It is not essential to have perfect knowledge of iambs and metric feet if you are a beginner, but you should try to always use the same number of syllables in each verse. Count the syllables at the beginning so you don't write too long lines.
Step 4. Read many contemporary rhyming poems
When looking for rhymes, you may in some cases be tempted to write like a classic author. It is not necessary to twist your language to obtain an artificial formal version of it. If you want to write a rhyming poem in the twenty-first century, you should give the impression that the author is shopping at the grocery store, not that he is a dragon hunter. Read the poems of contemporary artists who create rhyming poems without looking like mummies:
- Patrizia Valduga, "Quatrains"
- Patrizia Cavalli, "Untitled"
- Umberto Saba, "Amai"
- Alfonso Gatto, "The football match"
Part 2 of 3: Writing Poetry
Step 1. Choose a composition method
Rhyming poems are composed in many ways, and there is no one better than another. You can start with a traditional poetic structure and write a poem that fits it, or you can start writing, and understand later if a structure can make the poem more interesting.
- The most common technique is to choose a structure first. On wikiHow you can find articles on how to write poems following the classical structures.
- Alternatively, you can start writing about a particular topic, without paying attention to the rhyming pattern or the meter. Yeats, the great Irish poet, began all his poems by writing in prose.
- An alternative is to avoid rhymes altogether. Not all poems need it. If you have to write a poem for school, starting with prose is a good way to do it.
Step 2. Write a list of rhyming words that fit your topic
Don't follow rules that are too strict for rhymes, but just try to find as many as possible to have a rhyming from which to start. Keep expanding the word list as you write and rework your poem.
- Be sure to choose words related to the same theme, similar in tone if necessary, and in tune with the subject of the poem.
- It can also be a good idea to choose bizarre or seemingly off-topic words to test your creativity.
Step 3. Write a complete verse
It doesn't have to be the first verse, and it doesn't have to be exceptional. Just focus on writing a line to help you create your poem. You can always change it later.
This will be your guiding verse. Count the feet of the verse and try to figure out what meter you have adopted. Then use the same meter for the other lines. If you want, you can modify it later
Step 4. Write each verse as if you were opening a door
Write a few lines around the first one and look for some nice connections that can bring the poem to life. When you write, try to integrate the words you added to the rhyming into the composition and let the lines inspire you for the following ones, recalling and developing the images they contain.
- If you write something like "The feeble words of fate", it will be difficult to continue and develop the image contained in the verse. It is a closed door. You could always write the rhyme "they remind us how hated he is," but you could slip into a dead end. How could you go on?
- Write "open" lines full of images and without big abstract words. What do the "feeble words of fate" look like? What are these words? Who pronounces them? Try something like “My mother was tired and told us to take the white tablecloth,” a verse that describes an image and gives you something to work on: “My mother was tired and told us to take the white tablecloth. / His words still ring out, when I think about how much I miss”.
Part 3 of 3: Revisiting a Rhyme Poem
Step 1. Choose a rhyming scheme and use it to review your poem
If you have a collection of rhyming words or something that starts to sound like a poem, a good way to rework and wrap up a poem is to choose a rhyming scheme to fit it into. The rhyming scheme of a poem determines the rhymes generated by the end of the lines. If the poem already has an interesting rhyming pattern, keep using it. Otherwise, try one of these traditional schemes:
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ABAB (alternate rhyme) is one of the most used schemes. It means that the first and third lines will end with the same rhyme (A with A), as well as the second and fourth lines (B with B). Ex:
TO - The pond shines. Are you silent?
B. - the Frog. But a flash flickers:
TO - of glowing emerald, of embers, B. - blue: the kingfisher.
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ABCB is another common scheme, which offers more flexibility. Ex:
TO - Roses are red
B. - Violets are blue
C. - Sugar is sweet
B. - And so are you.
Step 2. Don't follow rules as dogmas
While traditional rhyming patterns are useful and fun, feel free not to follow them if you prefer. A beautiful poem is not necessarily constructed following predefined patterns, but it is a poem that communicates an original and unique idea that would have been impossible to express in prose.
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TO - And for sure there will be time
B. - for the yellow smoke that slides on the street
C. - and touches the glass with its back;
TO - there will be time, there will be time
B. - for a face that meets the faces in your wake
D. - there will be time for destruction and creation
AND - and time for all the works and the days of the hands
D. - that on your plate raise and decline an issue
F. - time for me and time for you
G. - and time for a hundred indecisions
G. - and for a hundred visions and revisions
F. - before having a toast and a tea.
Write a Rhyming Poem Step 11 Step 3. Consider using a more complex traditional structure
There are many different structures, which are written following a semi-complex scheme. If you want to try your hand at writing a poem that follows a pre-established rhyming pattern, you can try one of the following:
- The couplets are a pair of apparently simple lines that rhyme with each other. You can write a poem made entirely from couplets to create a composition called "heroic couplets". Milton, Alexander Pope and many other poets of English literature have made great use of couplets.
- Sonnets are 14-line rhyming poems that can follow two different rhyming patterns. Shakespearean sonnets always follow an alternating rhyming pattern and end with a couplet: A-B-A-B, C-D-C-D, E-F-E-F, G-G. Petrarchian sonnets have multiple variations, but generally follow this pattern: A-B-B-A, A-B-B-A, C-D-C, D-C-D.
- Villanelles are very complex poetic forms that require you to repeat entire lines in the poem. The villanelles are written in triplets, all rhyming A-B-A. Verses A must also be repeated as the final lines of the following triplets. This poem requires a lot of effort.
Write a Rhyming Poem Step 12 Step 4. Play with the words
Don't fixate on the rhymes to the point of forgetting to give importance to the other words in the verse.
- Use assonances, or the repetition of vowels.
- Use consonances, i.e. the repetition of consonants.
- Alliterations are the repetitions of the first sounds of words.
Advice
- If you have to write a poem as a school assignment, start it right away. To get it right, don't think about it at the last moment.
- Use rhymes like Rimario.net or Cercarime.it to find rhymes you may not have thought of.
