One Page Poetry Circle Archive

Welcome to the Virtual One Page Poetry Circle!

Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Theme: Poetry and Slant Rhymes

Find a poem! Send a poem by email!

We're back for the fourteenth spring season of the One Page Poetry Circle where people examine the works of established poets. While there is no instructor and this is not a workshop for personal writing, once a month OPPC gives everyone a place to become teachers and learners to explore the form, content, language and meaning of poetry. Since the circle began, participants have selected and discussed 1366 poems and have read countless others in pursuit of poetry that speaks to them.

This spring we will gather virtually, by email. We ask you to send us the poems you have selected on the subject of Poetry and Slant Rhymes, with a comment on why you chose them. We'll share the poems with you through our blog and by email.

Our theme for April is Slant Rhymes, which are also called near rhymes, imperfect rhymes, or sprung rhymes. With slant rhymes, the rhyming words are similar to each other, but do not rhyme exactly. The rhyming words may share the same vowels or syllables or just look alike as in an eye rhyme.

Lord Byron set himself the monumental task in his Don Juan of rhyming thousands of lines in the ottava rima pattern of AB,AB,AB,CC. The rhymes move the poem along quickly and often humorously as in the final couplet of this verse:

• And that’s the moral of this composition,
•     If people would be see its real drift;--
• But that they will not do without suspicion,
•     Because all gentle readers have the gift
• Of closing ’gainst the light their orbs of vision;
•     While gentle writers also love to lift
• Their voices ’gainst each other which is natural,
• The numbers are too great for them to flatter all.

As in Byron's poem, modern hip-hop poetry is composed of a variety of rhyme types with the slant rhyme as one of its most important tools. Slant rhymes are the key element in creating flow (the interaction between rhyme, rhyme schemes, and rhythm). Master hip-hop artist Rakim uses slant rhymes to rap about his creative process on his album "I know You Got Soul":

• I start to think and then I sink
• Into the paper like I was ink,
• When I’m writing I’m trapped in between the line,
• I escape when I finish the rhyme.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's rap lyrics for "Washington on Your Side" from his hit show Hamilton flow with true rhymes, interior rhymes, and slant rhymes:

• I’m in the cabinet, I am complicit in
• Watching him grabbin’ at power and kissin’ it
• If Washington isn’t gon’ listen
• To disciplined dissidents, this is the difference
• This kid is out!

Can't locate a poem with slant rhymes that you want to send? Check out Poetry Foundation or poets.org.

In the meantime, please blog with us at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Spring 2022 Schedule
April 12: Slant Rhymes
May 10: Clouds

Abigail Burnham Bloom, abigailburnhambloom@gmail.com
AnnaLee Wilson, annalee@kaeserwilson.com