When going through the alphabet, inserting an R or an L into short words will often make another word. So if you were looking for a rhyme with cat, you could find bat as well as brat; fat, as well as flat and frat. It’s a trick of the trade.
“Moon” could be slant rhymed with “on” or “schooner” or “groom” or even “gong”. Slant rhymes offer complexity and surprise to a regular series of hard rhymes.
Often, a free write will end on a particularly good line you might want to use as a starting place. Look to the last few sentences for a guideline.
Couplets, or heroic couplets, refer to any poem in which the poem rhymes every two lines. Used by poets from Milton to Frederick Seidel, couplets can create a sense of gravity and the epic. A poem featuring quatrains, or four-line stanzas, may rhyme in a basic alternating rhyme scheme (ABAB) or other schemes. Ballads and songs are traditionally written in quatrains, making it a good form for telling stories or spinning musical tales. In a villanelle, whole lines from the first stanza are repeated from one three-line stanza to the next, with the first and last line in the stanza rhyming, giving the poem a sense of inevitability, as if the poem were something you cannot escape from. Sonnets are poems of 14 lines with a semi-complicated and pre-set rhyme scheme, with about 10 syllables or five beats per line. Most sonnets written in English are generally either Petrarchan (ABBA) or Shakespearean (ABAB, with a rhyming couplet for the last two lines). Sonnets often deal with rhetorical themes or “arguments,” featuring a turn in the poem somewhere after the eighth line.
Paul Muldoon, an Irish poet, has a surprising rhyming style. His poem “The Old Country” is a crown of sonnets that features deft and surprising rhymes: Every runnel was a Rubicon / and every annual a hardy annual / applying itself like linen to a lawn. / Every glove compartment held a manual.
Check out Michael Robbins, who in his great poem “Alien vs. Predator,” creates a long string of wacky and associative musical rhymes from the cereal aisle: He’s a space tree / making a ski and a little foam chiropractor. / I set the controls, I pioneer / the seeding of the ionosphere. / I translate the Bible into velociraptor. [1] X Research source Read Ange Mlinko, a contemporary poet skilled enough to pull of rhyming potatoes with tattoos to end her poem “The Grind”:[2] X Research source spooning up Aphrodite / to Greek porticoes, and our potatoes, / and plain living which might be / shaken by infinitesimal tattoos. “Casualty”[3] X Research source by Seamus Heaney manages to be colloquial, narrative, musical, and incredibly easy to read. He’s a great poet who makes it seem effortless: And raise a weathered thumb / Towards the high shelf, / Calling another rum / And blackcurrant, without / Having to raise his voice David Trinidad–a poet who often writes about the pop culture of the 1960s–shows mastery of the villanelle form with his hilarious and poignant “Chatty Cathy Villanelle”: Our flag is red, white and blue. / Let’s make believe you’re Mommy. / When you grow up, what will you do?[4] X Research source
Many songwriters find it helpful to sing nonsense syllables or whistle to figure out the melody and establish a base form for you to fill with words. Go with whatever technique works best for your process. Bob Dylan, considered by some to be one of the greatest songwriters ever, often wrote words first. Give it a shot.
Many songwriters find it helpful to sing nonsense syllables or whistle to figure out the melody and establish a base form for you to fill with words. Go with whatever technique works best for your process. Bob Dylan, considered by some to be one of the greatest songwriters ever, often wrote words first. Give it a shot.
In Kacey Musgraves’ “Blowing Smoke,” the phrase “blowing smoke” is used at different times to refer specifically to waitresses on break smoking cigarettes, and also to boasting of quitting someday, referring to both the job and the habit. It’s an effective technique that changes the meaning but not the words.
In “The Butcher,” Leonard Cohen makes a brief and devastating rhyme out of drug use: I found a silver needle. I put it into my arm. / It did some good, did some harm.
The Rolling Stones employed this technique for their song “Casino Boogie”: One last cycle, thrill freak Uncle Sam / Pause for business, so you’ll understand. [5] X Research source
Some rappers will do a similar “nonsense word” technique, just spitting rhythmically without saying actual words. Try to record yourself doing this, even if it sounds silly, because something good might leap out. Good rapping is as much about flow as good rhymes. If you stay on beat, it’s better than if you lose the beat and try to force awkward or overly complicated rhymes into the structure of the song.
In “Duel of the Iron Mic,” GZA creates a particularly strong break in the lines, using a well placed and surprising break in the beat to surprise us: I ain’t particular, I bang like vehicular / homicides, on July 4th in Bed-Stuy
Nas, who jumped on the scene as a teenager with his classic album Illmatic, which featured these lines: It drops deep as it does in my breath / I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death. [6] X Research source Eminem, whose intricate and well-crafted rhymes have made him a bona-fide king of the rap game: I’m Slim, the Shady is really a fake alias / to save me with in case I get chased by space aliens. [7] X Research source Rakim, one of the most influential MCs in hip-hop: Even if it’s jazz or the quiet storm / I hook a beat up, convert it into hip-hop form. [8] X Research source
