Try to write poetry in verse

Enjambment. Don't end stop your lines and it won't sound so contrived. For example:

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,

Rhyme two words with different syllable counts, it sounds a lot better

>The rhyme is the payoff, it's the consquences of what comes before. It's more important to have a good rythm.
All of this. Rhyme has no intrinsic value and is completely ancillary to forms deployed.

FWIW, W.H. Auden said you could always tell who was going to be a great poet because they just liked rhyming and screwing around with words rather than trying to write a masterpiece every time. Nothing wrong with being the next Ogden Nash or Edward Lear.

>By 1893, he was annoyed by his mistreatment in the streets and wrote an angry poem threatening to leave Dundee. One newspaper quipped that he'd probably stay for another year once he realised "that Dundee rhymes with 1893".

This has to be the most hilarious Wikipedia page I've ever read

So can someone explain rhythm to me?

>He found lucrative work performing his poetry at a local circus. He read his poems while the crowd was permitted to pelt him with eggs, flour, herrings, potatoes and stale bread. For this, he received fifteen shillings a night.

Yea Forums finally finds out how to make a living from writing

Go listen to William Shatner talk, that's someone who talks with a weird rhythm.

Listen to the album Animals by TTNG, the singer has a wonderful sense of rhythmic phrasing.

You can't understand rhythm separate from experiencing it.

Fuck you faggot quote someone, and someone good at that.

I'm 20 and I've never written a poem. Never gone out of my way to read one either.

Attached: 1553922085942.jpg (460x339, 28K)

> I close my eyes and seize it
> I clench my fists and beat it
> I light my torch and burn it
> I am the beast I worship

JK Rowling was rejected by dozens of publishers who had your attitude.

So is the
>I
>denoting (close, clench, light and am)
>object (eyes, fists, torch and beast)
>second denotation (seize, beat, burn and worship)

the Rhythm? Or is it the general plot that is the rhythm?

Rhythm is how something unfolds over time. If you tap your fingers to the syllables as you say them, that is the rhythm of it.

It's more subtle than that. The key is affect and managing the affect of rhyme. If one were to take "enjambment" as a rule, then why exactly does this work:

hen forty winters shall beseige thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

Enj. can be used just as badly as end-stopping, but end-stopping just focuses attention on a given rhyme, so if the rhyme is particularly trite, each line will end with a cymbal clang.
If OP says his rhymes are "too simple" its likely there is more wrong with his verse than rhyme, namely, it's likely that there is not much going on. Some of the best poetry has "simple" rhymes, but they are used for such an effect, not despite it.

Rhythm is a fixed, repeated pattern. Rhythm in poetry is often its meter, but it could also be thematic and symbolic repetition.

Of course it isn't a rule. There are no rules. It is a tip. Not everyone can be Shakespeare. In general end stopped rhymes sound more forced than enjambed rhymes, especially for a beginner. Rhyme should feel natural. Shakespeare is a genius, so can make end stopped rhyme sound natural. But most beginners focus too much on the rhyme and the rest feels forced to accommodate the rhyme.

Anyone have any recommendations for poetic theory? Either craft books or examples of collections of good poetry.

If only the other publishers had that attitude

Internal rhyme, or blank verse, is the answer.

Poetic designs by Stephen Adams
The ode less traveled by Stephen fry

The Norton anthology of English poetry
The best poems of the English language by Harold Bloom

JK Rowling has produced nothing but dog shit

Is this guy a 19th century Chris Chan?

You meant to use "advice"

Thanks user, i'll look into those