Why Don't Poems Rhyme Anymore?

Posted on April 22, 2008

Slate's John Lundberg asks "Why Don't Poems Rhyme Anymore?" The article focuses on a group called The Queen's English Society, which is advocating a return to more formal verse. The Society is dead seat against modern free verse.

The President of the QES, a man named Michael George Gibson (it may be a QES requirement to use three names), recently told the British newspaper The Guardian, "For centuries word-things, called poems, have been made according to primary and defining craft principles of, first, measure, and second, alliteration and rhyme. Word-things not made according to those principles are not poems."

I'm sorry...word-things?

Anyway, the QES isn't alone. Here in America, a movement called New Formalism has been pushing for a return to formal verse for decades. The poet and critic Dana Gioia in his "Notes on New Formalism" ticked off what he perceived to be the problems with contemporary free verse poetry:

"The debasement of poetic language; the prolixity of the lyric; the bankruptcy of the confessional mode; the inability to establish a meaningful aesthetic for new poetic narrative and the denial of a musical texture in the contemporary poem. The revival of traditional forms will be seen then as only one response to this troubling situation."

Ok, calling non-traditional poetry "word things" is just too funny. It's elitist and ridiculous, of course. But still funny. In fact, we think the modern poets should turn the tables on the QES and embrace the term "word things." We certainly will. Word things: they're good things.

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