Poetry Corner: Rhyme [Poetry Friday]

Enjoy all the of the great Poetry Friday posts. Teacher Dance is hosting this week's round up.

Rhyme is defined as a word that has the same end sound as another. There are various kinds of rhyme.

Perfect Rhyme are words that rhyme exactly, or perfectly. Here is an example of a poem with perfect rhyme:

Safe and Sound

Seeds buried

Safe and sound

Shooting sprouts

From the ground.

Buds soon bloom

All around

From seeds buried

Safe and sound.

Copyright Kimberly M. Hutmacher Poetry Play For Preschoolers 2003

In the above poem, sound, ground, and around are perfect rhymes.

Imperfect or near rhymes are words that do not rhyme perfectly. One example might be dances/branches.

Eye rhymes are words that look alike but do not sound the same. Examples include mood/wood and prove/love.

Homonyms are words that do not look alike, but do sound alike. Examples of homonyms include: threw/through and meet/meat.

Identical rhyme is an exact word rhyming with itself. A great example of this is Edgar Allen Poe’s Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

Annabel Lee is used to end lines over and over again throughout this poem. This poem also offers a great example of internal rhyme, where there are rhymes placed inside of the same line in the poem. We see beams and dreams and rise and eyes.

Challenge: Look at some of the poetry you’ve already written and identify which types of rhyme you’ve used.

Happy Poem-Making!