Down the Road We Go

Rhyming sits at the summit of the euphonic art. It's not just a trick or a tack-on to your traditional poem.

Like tires on an automobile, it's what meets the road as far as the sound of a traditional poem goes (or doesn't go). The ancient art of alliteration forms the axle, the urgent but gentle substructure of assonance the spoked wheel, but rhyme is the rubber on the road, the place where you feel the bump.

And like automobiles (or personal computers), traditional poems are evolutionary devices: the early "motor coaches" of the Model T and Benz era (and before) laid the groundwork for the latest Lincoln or Kompressor models. The new ones are faster and fancier, for sure, but essentially no different.

You may not write like Shakespeare or Chaucer (or need to), and you may not speak quite the same language, but you (and I) must drive the same highways.