# Why is metered and rhyming so hard?



## HLGStrider (Jul 6, 2003)

Do you usual write rhyming poems or free verse?

I've heard people talk about how they can only write free verse, but that always stumped me because I CAN'T!

Everytime I try to write a poem that doesn't rhyme or start to, it ends up wanting to rhyme or sounding forced or corny. . .

My rhymes are much better and make so much more sense. . .

What about you?


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## Lúthien Séregon (Jul 8, 2003)

I definitely write in mostly rhyme, I find it easier that way as well. My free-verse poems generally lack rhythm, but rhyming gives the poem more rhythm as well as more appeal ( they're easier to remember as well ).


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## Lantarion (Jul 8, 2003)

I don't usually pay attention to rhyming, but sometimes, if I have the general jist and 'plot' of the poem, I might try to find words that both fit into the poem without standing out especially and rhyme with another word; depending on the rhyme scheme I'm using, of course.
And Elgee, I would have thought that freeverse would be a lot easier than rhyming poems! You can concentrate on the words and the texture of the poem instead of trying to force yourself to find words that rhyme just for the sake of it! There are many of my poems in the Poetry thread that have gone seriously awry because I have tried too hard to impose rhymes into them.


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## HLGStrider (Jul 10, 2003)

Everytime I start with the intention of not rhyming I start to rhyme. It is muy frustrating.


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## Lantarion (Jul 10, 2003)

Some people would call that a gift, you know..


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## syongstar (Jul 10, 2003)

*poetry*

I write alot and edit alot,quite often the words ryme.~~**~~

http://www.geocities.com/urpeotry/index.html


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## Arebeth (Aug 23, 2003)

I don't care about ryming. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not. But, I can't help imagining how it would be if it was_said_ by someone (well, someone who would understand what I'm talking about...) as I am actually learning acting. I've always been someone who listens very much, so for it's really important: how it will _sound_. No matter if the lines ryme are not. If I can't be faithful to my thoughts by ryming them, then I don't.


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## Dimatron (Aug 30, 2003)

you know a big part in rhyming poems is how you read them...
i mean you have to read a line in a certain way for you to get that flow....u know?!


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## Arebeth (Aug 30, 2003)

I don't know if I really understand what you mean. Of course, when you read or say a poem, it's the way you say it which is important. (I know some great poems who are wonderful when _a particular person_ speaks them and just good when it's... _someone else_. And I go far enough.) But I think that respecting the metering if you don't understand what you're talking about is useless. The meaning is more important than the form, in my opinion.
For a writer it's just the same: better be a good writer who doesn't rhyme and doesn't need it "because the others do" than someone who writes metered poems but can't say what he wants to say in that way, and so can't touch you.


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## HLGStrider (Aug 30, 2003)

I think TB has a point. . .pronounciation can make reading certain poems very awkward. . .and also, sometimes I write poems and put a certain lilt to the words and the sound good to me, and I show them to somebody who reads them outloud, and I want to yell that they're reading it wrong. 

Meaning is important, of course, but I think the sound of it is as well. You can write with a lot of meaning and still have a bad poem if you don't have a sense of words. For a lot of writers the sense of words is natural. For others it needs to be nurtured (mostly by reading).

I personally do not read a lot of free verse. I greatly prefer the kind that rhymes. I don't know why.


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