Rhyming Isn’t Necessary for all Poems

Singer-songwriter Siobahn Hotaling has been involved in the music industry since the age of 16. She has since released two albums and written hundreds of songs. In addition, Siobahn Hotaling received her B.A. in Creative Writing with a specialization in Poetry from Skidmore College. In recent years, she has expanded from purely written poems to performance poetry. Over the past several years, Siobahn has appeared at several poetry open mics in New York as both a participant and as a featured poet.

While some well-known and classic poems incorporate rhyming and certain modern poems, rhyming is overdone in certain prose. When poems have too many rhymes, the verses sound more musical and come across like a children’s nursery rhyme. This is because the ear places more value on natural speech. Excessive rhymes don’t sound natural, even in poems, unless it is done for the sake of performance. Performance, sometimes called slam poetry, often relies heavily on rhymes to maintain a intriguing cadence or flow to the story.

In the written form of poetry, however, the focus of a good poem is creating something that flows with strong language. If rhyming doesn’t work in a particular poem, it might be better to leave it out and let the words create the movement, so the poem’s language resonates with listeners more strongly. Non-rhyming written poems are usually less predictable, display emotion more accurately, and maintain flow better than rhyme.