There is no Frigate like a Book
to take us Lands away.
– Emily Dickinson
I find you in these sunless stacks.
Your poems might be uncommonly fine —
but your pages darken to brittleness
and you’ve never been checked out. Unless
your anchor’s weighed and you proceed
to find the harbor of another’s mind,
nothing will come of the cargo in your hold.
I stand in the gloom of the unread, and read.
I wrote this poem in what might be called “customized” rhyme. By that I mean, instead of a standardized rhyme scheme — such as a quatrain or sonnet which serves to “package” the poem — the customized rhyme scheme illustrates and supports the argument the poem is making. The rhymes here are: abaa/cbcc. The first b (“fine”) has to wait for its mate (“mind”) until the poem’s journey has succeeded.
But rhyme is like sweets. Too much can cloy; more is not automatically better. When rhyme is overused, is mismatched to the meaning of the poem, it draws attention to itself and competes with the poem, rather than reinforcing its argument. The effect is that of watching a child skip rope while trying to sing an unrelated song. Some poems will want no rhyme or formalism of any kind because it does not augment the argument of the poem. And that brings us back, full circle, to free verse.
Form is hunger: Hunger because the human ear craves the reassurance of repetition, because man is a counting creature. The agency of life is to give form to matter; the agency of matter, to make form visible; the agency of form, to be perceived by life. That, I think, is the circle of life and art.