The Sound Effects of Poetry 3: How To Run Your Rhymes

In this seven-part series, we examine the different sound effects of poetry. Today, we talk about how rhymes add great sound to your poetry.

The Sound Effects of Poetry 3: How To Run Your Rhymes

Rhymes are what most readers expect of a poem. They’re also the sound effects poets can have lots of fun with! Let’s explore how it can be done.

This is a seven-part series on the sound effects of poetry. Please read the blog posts in their numerical order:

The Sound Effects Of Poetry 1 – The Basics

The Sound Effects Of Poetry 2 – Sound Creates Meaning

What Exactly Is A Rhyme?

‘Rhyme’ can mean any brief poem (as in nursery rhyme) but in this blog, we’ll look at ‘rhyme’ as a sound effect. For two words to rhyme, they either have to be identical, or parts of these words must sound alike (that’s where things get interesting).

Rhymes are the most common and maybe the most important sound effects. Why? Readers know that they usually come in pairs (at least) and they occur most often at the end of a line.

What happens is this: once readers understand that your poem is a rhyming poem, they will engage with your rhymes like in a game. Their subconscious will try to predict the next rhyme.

For poets, this offers many opportunities to play around with those expectations, to come up with unusual or incomplete rhymes, or even rhymes in unusual places. You can have lots of fun!

Rhymes come in all shapes and sizes (we’ll only mention a few). As a rule in English literature, two words rhyme if their last stressed vowel and all the speech sounds after that sound the same (other languages define this somewhat differently). Sounds academic, right? Don’t worry.

A Catalogue Of Rhymes

That final stressed syllable defines what kind of rhyme it is. Let’s look at how long the rhyming part is, and where it is placed. We’ll end up with a classification that can act like a catalogue of sound effects. You, as the poet, can choose what sound you want to give to your poem.

  • Identical Rhymes

When two words share more than that last syllable with the stressed vowel (and whatever comes after that), they’re called identical rhymes. Usually, that includes the consonant preceding that vowel.

Here’s an example: dream – scream.

In English literature, identical rhymes are considered inferior. The sound is just too predictable. If you make up a whole poem like this, then it’s just no challenge to the readers to predict the next rhyme.

  • Punning rhymes

Here, two words offer the same sound, making readers think, they’re identical. The charm is in the different spellings. Examples of punning rhymes are ‘bare’ and ‘bear,’ ‘eye’ and ‘I,’ or ‘sun’ and ‘son.’

Punning rhymes are also at the heart of double-entendre in poetry. Look at the final two lines of Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress: 

[…]

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

‘Son’ as the invisible punning rhyme to ‘sun’ is in everybody’s subconscious and semantically makes perfect sense. The invisible rhyme entertains the readers perhaps more than the written ones. It’ll make the poem appear like a treasure chest or a mysterious suitcase (here’s an article for you if you want to know why literature should be like a suitcase).

If you want to be a witty poet, punning rhymes are your thing!

  • Perfect Rhymes

They can be single (masculine), double (feminine) or dactylic. It all depends on where that stressed vowel is within the rhyming words. The most famous English poets have written their verses in perfect rhymes (Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge etc.):

Single (or masculine) rhymes have the stressed vowel right before the final syllable: rhyme – sublime.

In double (or feminine) rhymes the stressed vowel is on the second to last syllable, as in picky – tricky.

Dactylic rhymes have the last stressed vowel third to the last syllable, as in glamorous – amorous.

Perfect rhymes have the guise of serious, academically established poetry. You can’t go wrong with them. However, as with any literary device, dosage is the thing. Being a modern poet, perfect rhymes make you sound old-fashioned as if you were imitating the poets before you. That can be a wonderful sound effect if the subject matter is the total opposite. If it isn’t, too many perfect rhymes will seem too polished, and too boring.

  • Syllabic Rhyme

Here the rhyming words only have unstressed vowels, as in pitter – patter. They can be multisyllabic, too, as in ‘and roam’ and ‘bound home.’

  • Imperfect Rhyme

You can even rhyme stressed and unstressed syllables, as in pling – caring, lids – lads.

This is common in folk poetry or children’s verses. It can also be used as a sound effect to make a poem seem like it’s addressed to children or the common people when the content reveals that it’s not.

This list of rhymes is by no means conclusive. But it shows how varied rhymes can be. Don’t forget to play with the readers’ expectations. What if you write a poem in perfect rhymes with an end that doesn’t fulfil that expectation? Now that’s a dramatic effect!

Here’s a way to classify the rhymes according to their position in the poem.

  • End-line Rhyme

It’s the preferred position among poets. Reading a poem naturally emphasises the last word in a line (unless there’s an enjambment). It’s where readers will expect a rhyme.

  • Internal Rhyme

Rhymes within a verse line are crafted just like end rhymes. It’s the unusual position that makes the readers’ ears perk up.

Here’s an example of both end and internal rhymes in one poem. It’s taken from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (I have underlined the rhyming words).

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,

Glimmered the white Moon-shine.’

Especially when the internal rhymes and the end rhymes are two different sounds, the effect can be quite haunting. 

What’s The Idea?

Remember that all poetry comes from the oral tradition. This required poetry to have mnemonic devices, things that helped memorize the poem. Rhyming is a great mnemonic device. No wonder it is used for nursery rhymes!

Rhymes also cater to the fundamental human need for auditory harmony (just as symmetry provides visual harmony). That kind of harmony does something else, too.

As I have said in the previous blog post, sound can create meaning. Whenever two words are linked through rhyme, the sound connection creates emphasis, which happens on a semantic level, too. So, choose your rhyming words wisely!

Maybe you’d like to improve your rhyming skills. Let’s look at how musicians do it. They need lots and lots of rhymes. Here’s a video where a rapper explains three games he invented to improve his skills. Why don’t you give it a try?

The Last Word

Most readers expect poetry to contain at least some rhyme. As a poet, you need to have them in your toolbox. In part 4 of this series, we’ll look at how to combine the rhymes discussed here and create some basic rhyme patterns. Let’s see what sound effects we get.

Susanne Bennett

By Susanne Bennett. Susanne is a German-American writer who is a journalist by trade and a writer by heart. After years of working at German public radio and an online news portal, she has decided to accept challenges by Deadlines for Writers. Currently she is writing her first novel with them. She is known for overweight purses and carrying a novel everywhere. Follow her on Facebook.

More Posts From Susanne

  1. The Sound Effects of Poetry 2: How Sound Creates Meaning
  2. The Sound Effects of Poetry 1: The Basics
  3. Bad Poetry Day (18 August) – A Truly Liberating Day For Writers
  4. 10 Terrible Tips For Writing Bad Poetry
  5. The Shiny New Idea -Blessing Or Curse?
  6. How Writers Torture Themselves (& How To Stop)
  7. Douglas Adams On The Difficulties Of Writing
  8. Why Good Books Should Be Like Suitcases
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  10. Storytelling – Why Writers Should Know How To Tell A Tale

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Posted on: 5th February 2025
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