How to Write a Rhyming Poem
Make a list of full rhymes., Learn about other kinds of rhyme., Pay attention to the number of beats in each line., Read lots of contemporary rhyming poetry., Choose a method of composing the poem., Make a list of good rhyming words for your...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Make a list of full rhymes.
Words are said to rhyme when the endings and sounds of the words match.
There are many different types of rhyme, but full rhymes or "perfect" rhymes are words like "dog" and "bog," with identical vowel and consonant combinations.
If you want to write out a rhyming poem, a good way to get started is to practice rhyming.
Start with a word and come up with a good list of words that rhyme with it.
Some will be easier than others.
Dog, for example, rhymes perfectly with bog, cog, log, nog, agog, frog, grog, hog, and lots of others.
Come up with your own list for practice.
If you have a theme in mind, try to start coming up with a few different vocab words that might make for a good poem, and match rhyming words with each. -
Step 2: Learn about other kinds of rhyme.
While a few well-placed full rhymes might seem like the mark of a perfect poem, trying to make every rhyme perfect can force some poems to be awkward and clunky.
A good poem shouldn't include rhymes just to complete the poem, it's better to let the rhymes give the content of the poem some added color and inflection.
This is where more flexible rhymes come in:
Semi-rhymes match up almost perfectly except for the fact that one of the words has an extra syllable (ex. “hate” and “grating”).
Slant rhymes match only the end consonants, disregarding the vowel sounds (ex. “meant” and stint”).
Forced rhymes match up sounds properly but throw off the natural rhythm by rhyming a stressed syllable with an unstressed syllable (ex. “stíng” and “sharing”).
Visual rhymes match up words that look the same but sound different (ex. “dove” and “drove”). , Rhyming poems do more than include words that rhyme.
Most poems that rhyme also pay attention to the meter of the lines, which refers to the number of stressed and unstressed syllables in the line.
It can get quite complex, but the principles are pretty simple, and are good to be aware of when you're first getting started.
Count up the number of syllables in a line of poetry, like "To be or not to be, that is the question." In that line, there are ten.
Now, read the line out loud and try to listen to the stressed and the unstressed syllables.
Read it emphasizing those stresses.
Shakespeare's famous line is an example of what's called iambic pentameter, which means that the line includes five beats (pentameter), made up of an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable: "To BE or NOT to BE, that IS the question.
It's not super-critical to understand iambs and metrical feet when you're starting out, but it is good to try to keep the syllable-count of each line roughly the same.
Count up your syllables when you get started, so your poem's lines don't get too long. , When you rhyme, it can sometimes be tempting to start writing like a Victorian.
It's not necessary to stilt your language into an awkward formal version of itself.
If you want to write rhyming poetry in the 21st century, it should sound like it was written by someone who shops for cereal in the cereal aisle, not someone who slays dragons.
Check out contemporary poets who rhyme without sounding old-fashioned:
Joshua Mehigan's "The Professor" Hailey Leithauser's "Triolet with Pachyderm" Michael Robbins' "Not Fade Away" Georgia Douglas Johnson's "Your World"
Rhyming poems are composed in lots of different ways, and there's no one right way to get started.
You can start with a traditional poetic form and write a poem that fits it, or you can just start writing and see if what you write would benefit from a stricter form.
It's common to pick the form first and craft your content to fit the form of the poem.
If you select this method of composing, pick a form and go from there.
Check out this article for a primer on poetic forms.
Alternatively, you can start to write about a particular subject, without paying attention to the rhyme scheme or the meter of what you're writing.
Yeats, the great Irish poet, started all his poems by writing prose.
Another alternative is to forego rhyme entirely.
Not all poems will require rhyme to do what you want to with them.
If you're writing poetry for a school assignment, starting with prose is still a fine way of doing it. , Don’t be too strict with your rhyming words in list form, just try to get as many as possible to give yourself a cheat-sheet to work from.
Keep this list of rhyming words going as you write and revise your poem.
Be sure to choose words that are thematically related, are similar in tone when necessary, and relate back to the subject of your poem.
It's also a good idea to try to come up with some off-beat words to force yourself to fit in if you want to, as well as rhyming phrases that you might incorporate into the poem.
Rhyming "Buju Banton" with "the great wonton of Scranton"? Could be great. , It doesn’t have to be the first line of the poem, and it doesn't have to be great.
Just focus on committing one line to paper that will help anchor your poem and give yourself something from which you can build.
You can always change it later.
This is going to be your "guide" line.
Count up the beats in the line and figure out what you're working with in terms of the meter.
Then use that meter to guide the rest of your lines.
If you want to change it later, you can. , Write a few lines around your first line, and look for good connections that might spark the poem.
As you write, try integrating words from your rhyming list to give yourself some options, and keep building lines one on the next, using the images as the ideas from one to generate the next.
If you write something like "The feeble words of fate," it's hard to find anything to hold on to or to see in the line, which makes the poem harder to write.
It's like a closed door.
You could always rhyme "Lead us all to hate," but that likewise doesn't give us much to work with.
You're just rhyming.
What could come next? Write "open door" lines full of imagery and without any big abstract words.
What do "feeble words of fate" look like? What words? Who said them? Try something like, "My mother was tired and told us dinner was cold," which gives us something to see, something to work with: "My mother was tired and told us dinner was cold. / Her words have always been a cold stone to hold."
If you've got a loose-ish collection of rhyming words, or something that's starting to resemble a poem, a good way of revising and finishing a poem is to select a rhyme scheme and make it fit.
A poem’s rhyme scheme is the pattern that determines how the ends of the lines rhyme with one another.
If an interesting rhyme scheme has already begun to form in your poem, keep using it.
If not, use some traditional patterns:
ABAB is one of the most common rhyme schemes.
It means that the first and third line rhyme (A with A), as do the second and fourth (B with B).
Ex.A – Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?B – Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
A – Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,B – And summer’s lease hath all too short a dateABCB is another common rhyme scheme, offering more flexibility.
Ex.A – Roses are redB – Violets are blueC – Sugar is sweetB – And so are you. , Though traditional rhyme schemes are useful and fun to work with, feel free to forgo them for something looser, if it suits your needs.
A "good" poem isn't one that's perfectly constructed to fit the template of rhymes.
A good poem is one that communicates a strange, unique idea that would have been impossible to write out in prose.
A – And indeed there will be timeB – For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,C – Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;A – There will be time, there will be timeB – To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;D – There will be time to murder and create,E – And time for all the works and days of handsD – That lift and drop a question on your plate;F – Time for you and time for me,G – And time yet for a hundred indecisionsG – And for a hundred visions and revisionsF – Before the taking of a toast and tea., There are lots of different traditional forms, which are always written according to a certain semi-complicated pattern.
If you're curious about trying to write a poem that rhymes in a pre-determined pattern, you can try out any of the following:
Couplets are a deceptively simple pair of lines that rhyme together, and poems can be made up of lots of couplets to create what is called "heroic couplets." Milton, Alexander Pope, and lots of canonical poets made great use of the couplet.
Sonnets are 14-line rhyming poems that can follow one of two rhyming patterns.
Shakespearean sonnets always follow an alternating rhyme scheme, then end with a couplet: a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.
Petrarchan sonnets have somewhat more variance, but are generally some variation of a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, c-d-c-d-c-d.
Villanelles are very complex poems forms that require you to repeat whole lines of the poem.
Villanelles are written in three line stanzas, all of which must rhyme a-b-a.
The catch is that the A lines must repeat as the final line of each subsequent stanza.
These poems take some serious work. , Don’t get so caught up with how the ends of the lines match up that you forget to have fun with the middles.
Assonance refers to the repetition and rhyme of vowel sounds – ex. “far” and “start”) Consonance refers to the repetition and rhyme of consonants – ex. “freak” and “fork”) Alliteration refers to the repetition and rhyming of the first sounds of words – ex. “lazy lovers’ longing”) -
Step 3: Pay attention to the number of beats in each line.
-
Step 4: Read lots of contemporary rhyming poetry.
-
Step 5: Choose a method of composing the poem.
-
Step 6: Make a list of good rhyming words for your subject.
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Step 7: Write a full line of poetry.
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Step 8: Write each line like you're opening a door.
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Step 9: Pick a rhyme scheme and use it to revise your poem.
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Step 10: Let yourself abandon the rules.
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Step 11: Consider using a more complex traditional form.
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Step 12: Play with words.
Detailed Guide
Words are said to rhyme when the endings and sounds of the words match.
There are many different types of rhyme, but full rhymes or "perfect" rhymes are words like "dog" and "bog," with identical vowel and consonant combinations.
If you want to write out a rhyming poem, a good way to get started is to practice rhyming.
Start with a word and come up with a good list of words that rhyme with it.
Some will be easier than others.
Dog, for example, rhymes perfectly with bog, cog, log, nog, agog, frog, grog, hog, and lots of others.
Come up with your own list for practice.
If you have a theme in mind, try to start coming up with a few different vocab words that might make for a good poem, and match rhyming words with each.
While a few well-placed full rhymes might seem like the mark of a perfect poem, trying to make every rhyme perfect can force some poems to be awkward and clunky.
A good poem shouldn't include rhymes just to complete the poem, it's better to let the rhymes give the content of the poem some added color and inflection.
This is where more flexible rhymes come in:
Semi-rhymes match up almost perfectly except for the fact that one of the words has an extra syllable (ex. “hate” and “grating”).
Slant rhymes match only the end consonants, disregarding the vowel sounds (ex. “meant” and stint”).
Forced rhymes match up sounds properly but throw off the natural rhythm by rhyming a stressed syllable with an unstressed syllable (ex. “stíng” and “sharing”).
Visual rhymes match up words that look the same but sound different (ex. “dove” and “drove”). , Rhyming poems do more than include words that rhyme.
Most poems that rhyme also pay attention to the meter of the lines, which refers to the number of stressed and unstressed syllables in the line.
It can get quite complex, but the principles are pretty simple, and are good to be aware of when you're first getting started.
Count up the number of syllables in a line of poetry, like "To be or not to be, that is the question." In that line, there are ten.
Now, read the line out loud and try to listen to the stressed and the unstressed syllables.
Read it emphasizing those stresses.
Shakespeare's famous line is an example of what's called iambic pentameter, which means that the line includes five beats (pentameter), made up of an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable: "To BE or NOT to BE, that IS the question.
It's not super-critical to understand iambs and metrical feet when you're starting out, but it is good to try to keep the syllable-count of each line roughly the same.
Count up your syllables when you get started, so your poem's lines don't get too long. , When you rhyme, it can sometimes be tempting to start writing like a Victorian.
It's not necessary to stilt your language into an awkward formal version of itself.
If you want to write rhyming poetry in the 21st century, it should sound like it was written by someone who shops for cereal in the cereal aisle, not someone who slays dragons.
Check out contemporary poets who rhyme without sounding old-fashioned:
Joshua Mehigan's "The Professor" Hailey Leithauser's "Triolet with Pachyderm" Michael Robbins' "Not Fade Away" Georgia Douglas Johnson's "Your World"
Rhyming poems are composed in lots of different ways, and there's no one right way to get started.
You can start with a traditional poetic form and write a poem that fits it, or you can just start writing and see if what you write would benefit from a stricter form.
It's common to pick the form first and craft your content to fit the form of the poem.
If you select this method of composing, pick a form and go from there.
Check out this article for a primer on poetic forms.
Alternatively, you can start to write about a particular subject, without paying attention to the rhyme scheme or the meter of what you're writing.
Yeats, the great Irish poet, started all his poems by writing prose.
Another alternative is to forego rhyme entirely.
Not all poems will require rhyme to do what you want to with them.
If you're writing poetry for a school assignment, starting with prose is still a fine way of doing it. , Don’t be too strict with your rhyming words in list form, just try to get as many as possible to give yourself a cheat-sheet to work from.
Keep this list of rhyming words going as you write and revise your poem.
Be sure to choose words that are thematically related, are similar in tone when necessary, and relate back to the subject of your poem.
It's also a good idea to try to come up with some off-beat words to force yourself to fit in if you want to, as well as rhyming phrases that you might incorporate into the poem.
Rhyming "Buju Banton" with "the great wonton of Scranton"? Could be great. , It doesn’t have to be the first line of the poem, and it doesn't have to be great.
Just focus on committing one line to paper that will help anchor your poem and give yourself something from which you can build.
You can always change it later.
This is going to be your "guide" line.
Count up the beats in the line and figure out what you're working with in terms of the meter.
Then use that meter to guide the rest of your lines.
If you want to change it later, you can. , Write a few lines around your first line, and look for good connections that might spark the poem.
As you write, try integrating words from your rhyming list to give yourself some options, and keep building lines one on the next, using the images as the ideas from one to generate the next.
If you write something like "The feeble words of fate," it's hard to find anything to hold on to or to see in the line, which makes the poem harder to write.
It's like a closed door.
You could always rhyme "Lead us all to hate," but that likewise doesn't give us much to work with.
You're just rhyming.
What could come next? Write "open door" lines full of imagery and without any big abstract words.
What do "feeble words of fate" look like? What words? Who said them? Try something like, "My mother was tired and told us dinner was cold," which gives us something to see, something to work with: "My mother was tired and told us dinner was cold. / Her words have always been a cold stone to hold."
If you've got a loose-ish collection of rhyming words, or something that's starting to resemble a poem, a good way of revising and finishing a poem is to select a rhyme scheme and make it fit.
A poem’s rhyme scheme is the pattern that determines how the ends of the lines rhyme with one another.
If an interesting rhyme scheme has already begun to form in your poem, keep using it.
If not, use some traditional patterns:
ABAB is one of the most common rhyme schemes.
It means that the first and third line rhyme (A with A), as do the second and fourth (B with B).
Ex.A – Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?B – Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
A – Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,B – And summer’s lease hath all too short a dateABCB is another common rhyme scheme, offering more flexibility.
Ex.A – Roses are redB – Violets are blueC – Sugar is sweetB – And so are you. , Though traditional rhyme schemes are useful and fun to work with, feel free to forgo them for something looser, if it suits your needs.
A "good" poem isn't one that's perfectly constructed to fit the template of rhymes.
A good poem is one that communicates a strange, unique idea that would have been impossible to write out in prose.
A – And indeed there will be timeB – For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,C – Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;A – There will be time, there will be timeB – To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;D – There will be time to murder and create,E – And time for all the works and days of handsD – That lift and drop a question on your plate;F – Time for you and time for me,G – And time yet for a hundred indecisionsG – And for a hundred visions and revisionsF – Before the taking of a toast and tea., There are lots of different traditional forms, which are always written according to a certain semi-complicated pattern.
If you're curious about trying to write a poem that rhymes in a pre-determined pattern, you can try out any of the following:
Couplets are a deceptively simple pair of lines that rhyme together, and poems can be made up of lots of couplets to create what is called "heroic couplets." Milton, Alexander Pope, and lots of canonical poets made great use of the couplet.
Sonnets are 14-line rhyming poems that can follow one of two rhyming patterns.
Shakespearean sonnets always follow an alternating rhyme scheme, then end with a couplet: a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.
Petrarchan sonnets have somewhat more variance, but are generally some variation of a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, c-d-c-d-c-d.
Villanelles are very complex poems forms that require you to repeat whole lines of the poem.
Villanelles are written in three line stanzas, all of which must rhyme a-b-a.
The catch is that the A lines must repeat as the final line of each subsequent stanza.
These poems take some serious work. , Don’t get so caught up with how the ends of the lines match up that you forget to have fun with the middles.
Assonance refers to the repetition and rhyme of vowel sounds – ex. “far” and “start”) Consonance refers to the repetition and rhyme of consonants – ex. “freak” and “fork”) Alliteration refers to the repetition and rhyming of the first sounds of words – ex. “lazy lovers’ longing”)
About the Author
Willie Miller
With a background in education and learning, Willie Miller brings 10 years of hands-on experience to every article. Willie believes in making complex topics accessible to everyone.
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