Is rhyming verse more difficult than free verse?

[Stephen Whiteside]

Yes, I know what you mean, Val. I feel very much the same way.

For years I used to describe myself as a writer of rhyming verse, not a poet. People became confused, so now I just confess to being a poet.

One of the definitions of a poem that I like best is that a piece of writing is a poem if the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Whether I have ever achieved that (and I think I probably have, but only on a handful of occasions) is mostly for others to judge.

I think it is possible to write poetry with rhyming verse, but it is very difficult. Is it easier with free verse? To my mind it probably is a bit because, as you say, you are not constrained by the tyranny of rhyme and metre.

I think C. J. Dennis wrote a fair bit of poetry as rhyming verse, but he was a genius. (It should also be noted that during his life-time, his critics generally did not agree with this assessment. He was told he was a very clever versifier, but not a poet.)

I think TMFSR is poetry, because it flows like gold, and has stood the test of time. Same with Clancy of the Overflow.

Lawson? "They need not say the fault is ours if blood should stain the wattle." I think that's poetry.

I would agree with you though, that the vast majority of rhyming verse is not poetry. That's not to say it's doggerel, or unworthy. It is what it is - rhyming verse - and it generally works better when spoken out aloud than it does on the printed page.

An afterthought. I was asked to write a prayer for the Easter Sunday church service at the National Folk Festival. I'm not a religious person, but I decided to rise to the challenge nonetheless. I wrote it in free verse - well, prose, really, I suppose - because it would have been so much harder to say EXACTLY what I wanted to say using rhyme and metre.

[Neville Briggs]

Sorry Val, I don't quite get what you mean.

If you read the poem ONE ART by Elizabeth Bishop and the poem DO NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT by Dylan Thomas, or Henry Lawson's MIDDLETON'S ROUSEABOUT you will find that all of these are in strict rhyme and metre and most certainly are fine poetry. ( They are on the web )

I think this debate seems to get confused between poetic expression and form. I am sure that a writer who has poetic expression can bring that out to effect in any form from limericks to ballads to sonnets to haiku. I think that form is mostly mechanical, the art is what is constructed on that form.
Bit like building a house. A good foundation and frame and roof and wiring etc are all prescribed requirements but tranforming the house into a home is another matter, that doesn't come from a blueprint.


In this collective, we have chosen to go with the formal metric and rhyming schemes. As you have said, it is constraining, but that is a limit we choose to place on ourselves, it doesn't stop anyone from taking what is allowed within that limit, to it's best effect and expression.

As Stephen Fry reminds us, people who write bad poetry or verse just don't understand the sheer hard labour involved. He made no distinction with any form or "genre".

[David Campbell]

Val

I think it’s a pity if we don’t regard rhyming verse as ‘real’ poetry. I’d rather view rhyming verse, particularly with its emphasis on metre, as being right at the very heart of what poets do, stimulating and informing all forms of expression, including the spoken word. To say that “a real poet writes in free verse far from the restraints of rhyme and metre” creates two problems. Firstly, it reinforces the idea of a division in the poetry world…between the ‘real’ or free verse poets on the one hand and the rhyming poets on the other, the latter inhabiting some other (unreal?) dimension. Given that free verse is the dominant poetic form at the moment, that makes it even harder to get rhyming verse into the public arena as a legitimate form of contemporary poetry. To me, rhyming verse and free verse are just different forms of poetic communication, each with the power to explore the human condition effectively.

Secondly, to see rhyme and metre as ‘restraints’ is counter-productive. Instead, why not regard them as devices to be used, when appropriate, to create an effect? In other words, see them as a positive rather than a negative. Why can’t a rhyming poet paint a picture? Heather has just posted a terrific little poem in another thread that, to my mind anyway, certainly paints a picture.

Finally, with regard to listeners making a “guess” at the end of a line of rhyming verse, I can see how that can work to advantage with comic pieces. But not with serious poems. With a serious poem the listener should not really be conscious of the rhymes at all, let alone spend time guessing what might come next. That’s a distraction. The rhymes are incidental, which is why it’s so important not to twist lines around just to force a rhyme…the natural flow of the verse is paramount.

Stephen

I agree with the idea of a poem being more than the sum of its parts, but can’t see why that should be more likely with free verse than rhyming verse. I'm not keen on this distinction between ‘versifiers’ and ‘poets’. Does it mean that Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge, Blake et. al. weren’t poets because they wrote rhyming verse? Surely much of their poetry has stood the test of time. Once you start singling out individual poems like Clancy or TMFSR you get into very sticky territory. Why them and not something like ‘Black Swans’?

To me, a poem can be more than the sum of its parts if it makes you pause for a moment and think beyond what is on the page, if it opens up fresh ideas and takes you somewhere new, into previously unexplored territory. All manner of rhyming verse is quite capable of doing that, and some of the pieces you’ve posted on this site…judging by the responses…definitely put you in the ‘poet’ class!

Neville: I like the "building a house" analogy.

Marty, Bob, Jim and Maureen: Thank you for your responses!

Cheers
David

[Stephen Whiteside]

I can't fault your logic, David, and I find your idea quite inspiring - but I also find it hard to believe. I'm not sure what it is. I think I had certain ideas about poetry drummed into me from a very early age, and I can't shake them off. Is it just snobbery? Perhaps it is. A lot of it is certainly fashion, I know that. I remember being booed off the stage at a poetry festival at Montsalvat in 1983 for committing the 'rhyme crime'. (I was warned it was going to happen and put myself through it willingly, but it still hurt.) I'll keep thinking about it...

[David Campbell]

Yes, Stephen, I know something of what you mean about the 'rhyme crime'. Several years ago I went to one of those open mic readings held in a suburban pub and did a couple of rhyming poems. There was no booing, but I think 'amused contempt' probably best describes the response. Everything else was free verse, and pretty ordinary at that. Maybe I'm just naive or stubborn, but I reckon rhyming verse has an important role in the world of literature, both as a teaching tool and as an art form in itself, so it's worth promoting it as 'real' poetry whenever possible. Otherwise the idea (which is all too common, unfortunately) that it's out-of-date and stuck in the past just gets even more entrenched. That's why I'll argue till the cows come home against those who insist that we shouldn't, under the 'bush poetry' banner, write about "things that happen in our lifetimes" (a direct quote from an email I received). What on earth does that mean? How would a teenager interpret a 'rule' like that? It's an absurd idea. Writing about our history is an important part of what we do, but it shouldn't be the only thing we do.

I've just done a couple of radio interviews about a poem of mine, and one of the central discussion points was that it was a rhyming poem that had won a prize in a bush poetry competition...and yet it was set in the present day and made absolutely no reference to 'the bush' or anything related to it. That was clearly not the expectation. There are definitely stereotypical perceptions which have to be overcome, but...maybe one small step at a time!

Cheers
David

[Stephen Whiteside]

Yes, the notion that bush verse is about 'the bush' is very widespread in the 'non poetry' community.

I admire your stubbornness and determination. Your success as a 'free verse' poet puts you in a strong position to champion bush verse.

Thanks for the compliment, too, by the way.

[vwalla]

Oh dear!! I really did not wish to start a debate. I only (because both Stephen and David wrote well in both free verse and Rhyme and metre ) wanted to know which form they regarded as being the most difficult.
I didn't as they say, " come to " Bush Poetry until 1997 at the age of 60 and the only poems I was exposed to (Or maybe interested me) at School was "Wattle" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which in 3rd Class at Primary School we
learnt and performed on the Local Radio. What a thrill!
The only reason I became interested in Bush Poetry so late in life was that our Local Resident Bush Poet was performing at a local fete and had just formed a Bush Poetry group. I enjoyed his performance so much that I joined up and started to write a few poems about local issues.(Which when I look back I really hope I have improved somewhat)
To this day I prefer to listen to - not read, nor analyze poetry and much prefer the poems which tell a straightforward, no need for explanation, simple style of verse.
In fact the simpler the better.
My thanks go to our accomplished performers who bring our great writers to the fore.
This for me gives the best of both worlds.
So all of you . who promote "Bush Poetry" keep up the good work.
Val W

[keats]

Bugger. Thirty years on and I find out in this thread that I am not a poet. I am most upset by the expert opinions given and will now turn to Hippy verse to put some meaning back intoy life.

Devestated

Neil

[Bob Pacey]

Gotta be a poem in there somewhere Neil.

Type in Bush Poetry in goggle and you will get poems about George Bush ?


I have been invited on many occassions to poetry writing groups to be involved in discussions about the different styles that we write and I have been always made welcome, I do not always get the time to attend but I find that most are intreagued by the fact that I take the time to learn and memorise poems to perform. Got one at the end of this month where we will all share out poetry and some their short stories.

The only odd looks I got was at a local function for the Art Gallery where I put my Akubra on to perform.


Perhaps it is because I'm so shy !

Robert

[Stephen Whiteside]

Neil, I can only hope that when you speak of 'expert opinions' you are not referring to me!