9/29 Lecture - Rhyme and Form

Types and Characterizations of Rhyme

• Masculine rhyme - a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words
  

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
(Coleridge's Kubla Khan)

• Feminine rhyme - a rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words
  

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
as if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing.
(Coleridge's Kubla Khan)

• Internal rhyme - When a word at the end of the line rhymes with a word in the interior of the line

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-

• End rhyme - (also called tail rhyme or rime couée) a rhyme in the final syllable(s) of a verse (the most common kind)

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
(W.H. Auden In Memory of W.B. Yeats)

• Approximate Rhyme - (also imperfect rhyme or half rhyme) Words that are similar in sound but not exactly. For example - send and when, air and there, sun and plum.

it kind of rhyme with tropic
Besides it sound more exotic
(John Agard - Palm Tree King)

• Sight rhyme - Words which are similar in spelling but different in pronunciation, like mow and how or height and weight. Some words that are sight rhymes today did have a correspondence of sound in earlier stages of the language.

Reading - Marvin Brandwin at Crazy Wisdom

Marvin Brandwin at Crazy Wisdom
22 September 2009

University of Michigan Professor Marvin Brandwin performed a collection from his new release "A Smorgasbord of Verse" in front of an audience of friends and guests at Crazy Wisdom Bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor. Dr. Brandwin is an Emeritus professor in the University of Michigan Health System's Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Brandwin, however, has switched his emphasis from medicine to poetry.

We arrived at Crazy Wisdom Bookstore & Tea Room to the welcoming handshake of Harold Rothbart, Dr. Brandwin's publisher and long time friend, who directed us to a pair mismatched red chairs that blended in with the red paint and funky wall decorations of the meeting room. As the poet's family, friends, and a few unexpected guests (ourselves included) shuffled in, the reading began.

Dr. Brandwin's voice, gentle and seasoned by fifty years of teaching, introduced us to the "Smorgasbord," a collection of poems about all things delicious and nutricious. His poetry examined soups, salads, main courses, vegetables, fruits, side dishes, and the effects these foods have had on his life. Dr. Brandwin read his poems whimsically and with plenty of embellishment. That does not mean, however, that his poetry was taste deep. Poems examine aging ("Food Memories"), sex ("Seductive Grape"), and childhood ("Childhood Memories").

Dr. Brandwin is onto something special, and I hope he continues to write and publish poetry. The lovable poems are overflowing with rhyme and humor and would make a lovely addition to any kitchen. Given my propensity to food and cooking, I will certainly keep my copy at hand.

Audio Clip

I was looking for an audio clip of John Berryman's "The Ball Poem," about which I wrote a report at one point in high school. It was a really neat reading. I couldn't find it, so instead I present a drunk Berryman's reading of "There Sat Down, Once, a Thing on Henry's Heart."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGIr7fGdo6o


This video demonstrates the state of mind within which the poet operated at various parts of his life.

Iambic tetrameter

In bold and undulating lines,

While analyzing every rhyme,

Fatigue arising in the brain,

I think this poem was born in vain.

My fingers flicker, writing sweet

Unwritten words upon the sheet:

My sparkling digital retreat.

Class - 9/17

Meter

• Not something to be learned in a single day.
• Iambic pentameter is probably the most famous form of meter.
• Several characteristics are common to most forms of meter:

1. All meter uses rhythmic instead of ordinary statement. Focuses it towards formality or ritualism.
2. Changes in meter can reinforce other effects in the poem
3. Meters that use existing convention and patterns often associate themselves with the source of the convention

• Accentual-syllabic meter - both accents and syllables are measured and numbered, often in terms of feet or conventional patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. Tends to move toward order.
• Common feet - conventional patterns or units of stressed and unstressed syllables, examples are:

1. iambic foot (iamb): unstressed, stressed (u or ` respectively)
2. trochaic foot (trochee): stressed, unstressed
3. anapestic foot (anapest): unstressed, unstressed, stressed
4. dactylic foot (dactyl): stressed, unstressed, unstressed (like a triplet in music)
5. spondaic foot (spondee): stressed, stressed
6. pyrrhic food (pyrrhic): unstressed, unstressed. When followed by a spondee, the pair feet are referred to as a double iamb

• Line length

1. manometer
2. dimeter
3. trimeter
4. tetrameter
5. pentameter
6. hexameter
7. heptameter
8. octameter

Ex.

Before / I came / to class (iambic trimeter)

Exit / Often (trochaic dimeter)

Side Comments

• Apollonian vs. Dionysian impulses - the orderly or chaotic inclinations of human nature
• These terms mainly come from Greek dance moves (iam)b

Under Construction

More coming soon!