I am not a great poet, but I have learned a few things about poetic writing from great poets, including a former poet laureate of Utah. Poetic writing like rhyming can be used in any context from poetry to fiction to nonfiction to essay. I may venture into more poetic writing techniques later, but in this one, I will focus on rhyming.
A lot of people think that poetry has to be rhymed like a Dr. Seuss book. But one has to keep in mind that rhymed poetry came out of language in which a lot more words rhymed than do in modern English. This allowed for more versatility than in modern rhyme. Spanish, for instance, makes for easy rhyming because verbs generally have one of only three endings. In my view, some rhymed poetry in English is excellent and meaningful; however, so much of modern rhymed poetry sounds contrived and fake. Often, poets force their writing to serve the form rather than adapting the form to serve the meaning of their writing. When I write poetry, I like free verse because then I'm not slave to a set pattern. When done well, there are only small steps between poetic prose and free verse poetry.
Whether one prefers free verse, lyrics, iambic pentameter, prose, or something else, there are things that can be learned from poetic writing. Poetic writing is all about shaping the language in a conscious way to make it more meaningful and powerful. This will not be an exhaustive list.
Some Types and Purposes of Rhyme:
1. Rhyme creates a unity of sound, tying words together and creating emphasis. There are many kinds of rhyme, and several of them are listed in that website. End rhyming matches the sound at the end of the line like in Shakespeare. This is the most commonly used in rhymed poetry. There are several rhyme schemes that can be used, but my favorites are the sneaky kind, where it's not the same rhyme repeated two or three lines in a row but where the same rhyme might appear in the first and third or first and fourth line, and a different rhyme or no rhyme at all appears in the middle. It doesn't at first seem to rhyme. The rhyme sneaks up on you and doesn't slap you in the face.
For instance, this is the kind of rhyme that is obvious and in-your-face: If you don't know how to rhyme/It's obvious in no time./It can be such a crime,/And you won't earn a dime.
Meanwhile, the kind of rhyming that works for me better than most is where every line does not rhyme, or every so often, you might find a rhyme. Bruce Larkin's "Dad versus the Bug" provides an example: My mom saw a great big bug/Strolling across the kitchen floor./When mom spotted the oversized insect,/She bolted for the door." [Excerpt] In poems like this, the rhyme is a little more hidden. It still gives the strength of rhyming without becoming the main point.
Internal rhyming is a little more useful in prose. Internal rhyming is where two or more words in one line rhyme. This can be more or less subtle, depending on how it's done. If I write, "My fat cat is wearing a hat and sitting on a mat," I start to sound like I belong on Sesame Street. However, if I am more sneaky with my rhyme, I may be able to craft my language by tying words together with sound. For instance, I might write that "My cat annoyed me by destroying my boy's toy, which killed what remained of my joy in my day." I'm less glaring with my rhyming, yet I still tie the words together with rhyming. Still, some might feel that sentence feels contrived and forced. It's usually best to use any rhyming with a light touch.
In order to make such rhyming more subtle still, one can do the same sort of internal rhyming but do it with slant rhymes. That's where the words may not rhyme all the way but have much in common. For instance, in the line about the cat destroying the toy above, "joy" and "day" are slant rhymes because of the commonality of the "y" sound. Their vowels and beginning sounds are different, yet they still make a rhyme. If we take that same line with the cat above, we can use slant rhyming to tone in down. "My cat tried to annoy me by taking my child's toy, so I yelled any time it started to play." Here, the y is emphasized through slant rhyme.
My favorite rhyming tool in prose and poetry, alliteration, may not sound like rhyming. It is a kind of slant rhyme and isn't too different than the example above except it refers to the matching of the first letter in a word. A broader definition just requires that the sound be repeated over multiple words. Consonance is using the same consonant sound over multiple words, while alliteration is using the same vowel sound over multiple words. So some souls use slant rhymes by starting words with the same sound, which ties and unifies a sentence. Go back and count the S's in that last sentence, and you'll see what I'm talking about. This is a sneaky kind of rhyming of which the audience may not be aware as they go through, but it affects the reader subconsciously.
Incidentally, the above techniques can be used and combined to help with characterization. If you're writing dialogue for someone you want to seem snaky and sneaky, you might use a lot of S's. For a person you want to have sound powerful and strong, you may use a lot of strong sounds like K's and T's. For someone who you want to growl all the time, focus on the R's. This is really useful with prose. For someone you want to sound silly, whimsical, or magical, you can use more exact rhyming. Rhyming in its variations is a technique to use during the polishing process to make your writing more intentional and poetic. Try it sometime, and let me know where it takes you.
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