The Couplet and Finding Rhymes

Couplets
Not all poems rhyme. If you want to write unrhymed poems—hey!—that’s just fine. Many, many, many of the very best poems have no rhyme at all. They are written in “free verse.”

I am going to spend a few blog entries writing about poetic forms that do use rhyme, though, because I find rhymes fun. Finding a rhyme also often leads to surprises both in what we say in our poems and in how we end up saying it.

Maybe the easiest rhymed poetic form to understand is the “couplet.” A couplet is made of two lines (a couple—2) that each end in the same sound. Check out “Halloween” by Annie from Buffalo, NY, on www.kidswrite4kids.com:

Little ghosties in the street,
Spider dogs beneath our feet.
Eerie noises fill the air,
Skeletons give us a scare.
Goblins, heroes, and big, black cats,
Creepy witches in pointy hats.
Candle lit pumpkins shed their light,
Trick-or-treaters fill the night

This poem is written in couplets. Here is how we would describe the form:

AA/BB/CC/DD and on through the alphabet from there as the poem goes on. All this means is that the first two lines (A and A) rhyme with each other, the third and fourth (B and B) rhyme with each other, and so on.

Little ghosties in the street (A),
Spider dogs beneath our feet (A).
Eerie noises fill the air (B),
Skeletons give us a scare (B).
Goblins, heroes, and big, black cats (C),
Creepy witches in pointy hats (C).
Candle lit pumpkins shed their light (D),
Trick-or-treaters fill the night (D)

Finding Rhymes
“Ah,” you say, “that’s just fine, but I can’t think of a rhyme right off the top of my head!”

I know what you mean. I can’t either. When I am writing a new poem, I struggle. My paper is covered in crossed out lines and scribbles. It’s a terrible mess.

The margins of my papers are also covered with lists. Lists? Yup. Lists of rhymes. Here’s what I do:

Let’s say that I just wrote a line that ends with the word “dog.” I want to find a rhyme for “dog.” Okay. I start at the beginning of the alphabet and write down every word I can think of that rhymes with “dog.” Like this—
Bog, cog, fog, gog, hog, log, nog, sog, tog. I can’t think of any others right now. Maybe you can.

Now I look at that line I just wrote.

Wonderful Willie called for his dog

Then, using one of the rhymed words I found, I try a next line.

He whistled and hollered into the fog

Okay. I didn’t know at first that there would be a dog lost in the fog in my poem. Finding the rhyme gave me that idea. Now I have to see what I can do with it.

“Come, boy! Come!” calling out his name

Name? What rhymes with “name”? Well, time to go through the alphabet again.
Blame, claim, came, dame, fame, game, lame, same, tame

“Come, boy! Come!” calling out his name
And out of the mist his loyal dog came!

This all could have gone in a different direction:

Wonderful Willie called for his dog
Who had run off again chasing a hog
“Come, boy! Come!” calling out his name
Willie was tired of playing this game.

Your challenge: Try writing a poem in couplets. If rhymes don’t come right away, go through the alphabet and follow where the rhymes you find take you. Have fun!