The Sound Effects of Poetry 4: How To Make Rhyme Patterns Work

In this seven-part series, we examine the different sound effects of poetry. Today, we talk about how great rhymes can be layered to create a sound pattern.

The Sound Effects of Poetry 4: How To Make Rhyme Patterns Work

Rhymes are what chords are to a musician. They’re building blocks of sound. But if you want to compose a song, then you need to group those chords. In poetry, that’s called a rhyme pattern. Each of them has a unique sound. Let’s explore.

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

The Sound Effects Of Poetry 3 – How To Run Your Rhymes

What’s The Reason Behind The Rhymes?

In part 3 of our series, we talked about the sound of rhyming words. They always appear in pairs (at least). They’re never meant to be on their own. Today, we’ll combine a few of those rhymes, we’ll play around with them and see what patterns we come up with.

The idea behind rhyme patterns (rhyme schemes) is that they give a poem harmony, structure, balance, and flow. They can determine the atmosphere of a poem. Should it sound like a chant? Or playful? Rigid, or sarcastic?

Poets can create their individual rhyme patterns. However, we should talk about some basic patterns and see what kind of effect they produce.

Monorhymes

The simplest rhyme pattern is the monorhyme, where all lines have the same end-line rhyme (each rhyme is represented by a letter, so the monorhyme is represented by ‘aaaaa’). Here’s an example:

Cream – dream – seam – beam

Monorhymes control the flow of the poem. Each line will have a quick flow, but after a while, this can be monotonous. The readers will easily guess the last words of lines once they have a bit of context.

Couplet

Two rhyming lines are called a couplet (represented as ‘aa’). Here’s a famous couplet by Alexander Pope.

I am his highness’s dog at Kew; (a)
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? (a)

Couplets are often used in epigrams, proverbs, children’s nursery rhymes, and mnemonic devices. Couplets often sound witty (as in epigrams), or like they’re conveying some universal truth (like in proverbs, or nursery rhymes).

Couplets are the shortest form of a stanza, they’re short and easy to grasp. This makes it perfect for narrative poems, but also for poetry that is performed live (in poetry slams, or in Hip-Hop or rap music).

Look at an excerpt from Victor Hugo’s Epic of the Lion:

A Lion in his jaws caught up a child— (a)

Not harming it—and to the woodland, wild (a)

With secret streams and lairs, bore off his prey— (b)

The beast, as one might cull a bud in May. (b)

Limerick

Pair off one couplet with another one, and repeat the rhyme of the first line and you have a limerick!

Hickory, dickory dock, (a)

The mouse ran up the clock. (a)

The clock struck one, (b)

The mouse ran down, (b)

Hickory, dickory dock. (a)

Limericks are a good example where the easy-going sound of the two couplets gets a twist when the first rhyme is repeated. Let’s see move those rhymes around.

Alternating Rhymes

Mix up the rhymes of two couplets into abab. Because the second line doesn’t complete the rhyme of the first, readers need to suspend their expectations. They need to trust the poet to complete that rhyme – which happens in line 3, just as line 2 is completed in line 4. This creates tension and makes things a little more interesting.

Enclosed Rhymes

You can also group your rhymes into the pattern abba. In contrast to the couplets, enclosed rhymes form a stronger unit. This gives your poem more structure. The sound effect is similar to the alternating rhymes but the feeling of closure after the fourth line is perhaps slightly stronger.

Chain Rhymes

If we interlace rhymes even more, we can create chain rhymes (‘aba bcb cdc ded …’). Chain rhymes are an elegant way to carry the sound of one stanza over to the next. Even though there’s a lot of variation in the sound level, the chains hold the poem together. Look at Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening. He uses a variation of couplets and chain rhymes, with monorhymes at the end.

Whose woods these are I think I know.        (a)
His house is in the village though;              (a)
He will not see me stopping here                (b)
To watch his woods fill up with snow. (a)

My little horse must think it queer              (b)
To stop without a farmhouse near              (b)
Between the woods and frozen lake            (c)
The darkest evening of the year.                (b)

He gives his harness bells a shake              (c)
To ask if there is some mistake.                 (c)
The only other sound’s the sweep               (d)
Of easy wind and downy flake.         (c)

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.         (d)
But I have promises to keep,                      (d)
And miles to go before I sleep,                   (d)
And miles to go before I sleep.                   (d)

The chain rhymes drive the poem forward, and the monorhymes then reinforce the poem’s final message.

From Rhyme Pattern To Poetic Form

Let’s look at an example where rhyming patterns have been combined to create a poetic form, like the sonnet. There are different types of sonnets (read more about this here), we’ll choose the Shakespearean sonnet.

It consists of three alternating rhymes and a couplet (abab cdcd efef gg). Each of the three quatrains (those are the stanzas with four lines) offers a new aspect of the poem’s argument. The final couplet then yields the conclusion.

Our example is William Shakespeare’s Sonnet XVIII.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?                               (a)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.                   (b)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,                     (a)
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.                        (b)
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,                  (c)
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;                              (d)
And every fair from fair sometime declines,                          (c)
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;                (d)
But thy eternal summer shall not fade                                   (e)
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;                   (f)
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,                 (e)
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:                            (f)
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,                         (g)
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.                          (g)

Usually, critics argue on the semantic level, but I hope that you also see what the sound is doing here.

The alternating rhymes give a playfulness to the poem. If Shakespeare had chosen enclosed rhymes, he would have created a separation into stanzas, emphasising an argumentative structure. But he didn’t want this for this subject matter.

Instead, Shakespeare kept changing the sounds of the rhymes to drive the poem forward and keep the readers interested. The final couplet in monorhymes makes the conclusion sound like a proverb or an epigram.

The Last Word

There are many criteria for what turns a text into poetry. For most readers, rhyme is at the top of that list. But it’s not the only one, of course.

Most poets have a natural knack for coming up with rhymes. Should you struggle, don’t hesitate to consult a rhyming dictionary.

I hope this post helps you to use rhyme patterns to create sound effects that underline the message of your poem. They’re also a great way to have fun.

Should you decide that rhyming isn’t your thing, then don’t worry, there are many other sound effects to use. I’ll discuss some of them in the upcoming posts.

Further Reading

If you’d like to know more about poetic forms, please read ‘Poems 101: Kinds of poems’ on Writers Write (here’s the post on the ballad to get you started).

Here’s a great online rhyming dictionary: https://www.rhymezone.com/

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.

The Sound Effects of Poetry 4: How To Make Rhyme Patterns Work