Rhyme & Other Sound Devices: Creating Word Music
Although rhythm is sound, it is complex, so we will have a separate handout and discussion for meter (rhythm).
“Sound was my doorway into poems and I believe you taste sounds. You
chew on them. And they are delicious. When I read poems, just sitting
silently here in my chair, I can feel the muscles of my throat working.”
–DONALD HALL
“There are no tired rhymes. There are no forbidden rhymes. Rhymes are
not predictable unless lines are. Death and breath, womb and tomb, love
and of, moon, June, spoon, all still have great poems ahead of them.”
–A.E. STALLINGS
Read the vocabulary for this lesson: alliteration, assonance, caesura,
consonance, end rhyme, onomatopoeia, perfect rhyme, slant rhyme, rhythm, word-music.
Definitions are here and also in your Poet’s Glossary. Some terms may already be familiar.
Rhyme and Sound Device Advice in a Nutshell:
1. Use sound devices to create word-music within your poetry. Sound devices create a certain kind of
word texture that can be altered for contrast or emphasis. Poems are made up of sound and sense
(meaning), and sound can contribute to meaning, especially mood.
2. Start anywhere, and broaden your horizons. Learn some sound devices, and jump in and try
them! (You’ve probably been using rhymes since you were a little kid. Perhaps try a device that’s
new to you.) Rhyme is no longer a sure sign that you are in the presence of poetry. Contemporary
poets tend to avoid the blatancy of true rhyme in favor of less intense echoes, known collectively as
off-rhyme or slant rhyme.
3. Rhyme emphasizes rhyming words. The emphasis, through rhyming, of strongly contrasting words
can strengthen the effects of wit and satire.
4. Rhyme is also traditionally used in many situations to highlight endings of final lines,
emphasizing sense of closure.
5. Use sound devices, but don’t let sound drive the meaning of your poem.
6. Keep your sound devices balanced. Too much of the same sound device can be distracting, boring,
monotonous, unintentionally funny, or like a tongue-twister.
7. You can use sound to create focus. Sound can be an effective way to unify a poetic line.
8. Don’t rhyme words, rhyme phrases. This will make your rhymes more natural, less forced.
9. Put the more commonplace word last in the rhyming sequence (i.e. curiosity/me,
anthracite/night).
10. Check your underpoem (the list of rhyming end words).
11. Vary the location of your caesuras (the pauses in a line).
12. Remember that www.rhymezone.com is a useful resource.
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Sound Devices and Terms to Know
alliteration: Repetition of identical consonant sounds at the beginning of words or emphasized
syllables in close proximity, as in “swirling secrets,” and “sitting in the skies.” “Generally, while
consonants alliterate only with themselves, any two vowels are thought to alliterate together (‘over and
under’)” (Finch 192). Tip: Too much alliteration can create a tongue-twister, which you want to avoid.
assonance: The rhyming of vowel sounds in non-rhyming words. It is the repetition of identical or
similar vowel sounds in close proximity, as in “fetch the message.” This is the assonantal rhyme
discussed in the next section. Tip: Consider if the vowel sound it long or short when trying to create
mood. (i.e. rock vs. stone, candle vs. flame, depth vs. deep) .
caesura: A strong pause within a line, and is often found alongside enjambment. If all the pauses in
the sense of the poem were to occur at the line breaks, this could become dull; moving the pauses so
they occur within the line creates a musical interest. A caesura may be marked like this: ||. Tip: Don’t
have the pauses in your poem be in the same place in every line—it gets dull.
consonance: Loosely, the echoing of terminal consonants in end words. More narrowly, a kind of slant
rhyme in which patterns of consonants surround contrasting vowels: blood / blade; kiss / case. This is
the consonant rhyme discussed in the next section. Tip: Consonance is a wise choice when you want
your rhymes to sound subtle, understated, and not sing-song.
onomatopoeia: Simply put, a word whose sound imitates its meaning. Imitation in the sound of a word
(or word combination) of the sound connected to the action or thing named or described. “Slap,”
“swish,” “bubble,” “snort,” “fizz”, and “ping-pong” are examples. Onomatopoeia is from the Greek
word for “name-making.”
perfect rhyme, full rhyme, true rhyme: These terms refer to the immediately recognizable norm:
true/blue, mountain/fountain.
rhyme scheme: The pattern of rhymes. Rhyme schemes are described by equating the rhymed
syllables to letter symbols. “When marking rhyme patterns, we repeat a lowercase letter to mark
rhyming sounds, starting with a with each poem, with x for unrhymed sounds. Capital letters starting
with A are used for any words that are repeated exactly” (Finch 203). Thus a poem in rhymed
couplets: aa bb cc, etc; a poem in terza rima: aba bcb cdc dcd, etc. Non-rhyming lines are noted with
an x. For example a quatrain that doesn’t rhyme would be xxxx.
rhythm: Flow of stressed and unstressed syllables, pauses, line breaks, and other devices the writer
can control for musical effects. While we most frequently speak of “rhythm” or the lack thereof when
considering poetry, prose also has rhythms that can add to or detract from your work. Tip: Avoid
numbers of syllables in too many lines; it will make the poem sound sing-song.
slant rhyme, imperfect rhyme, squint rhyme, half rhyme, approximate rhyme, near rhyme, off
rhyme, oblique rhyme, virtual rhyme: These are all general terms referring to rhymes that are close
but not exact: lap/shape, glorious/nefarious, dizzy/easy
underpoem: The string of rhymed words in a poem, read together. When you rhyme words, you are
linking them in the meaning dimension as well as in the sound dimension. If you take a rhymed poem
you admire and read only the rhymed words together in a string, you will probably see that they make
an intensely linked underpoem, which we experience unconsciously at the same time we are
consciously reading the poem as a whole” (Finch 271-18).
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Introductory Thoughts on Sound
Feeling the Sounds
You are already aware of words that rhyme (matching vowels and matching final consonants), but are
you aware of the sound of consonants in general? “The sounds of our language have a physical as well
as emotional effect on us. ‘S’ sounds can create a kind of frightening kiss, ‘m’ sounds a murmuring
calm, ‘p’ sounds a quick emptying” (Finch 196). There is a huge International Phonetic Alphabet chart,
but just consider this brief list and how certain words feel in your nose, mouth and the mask of your
face when you say them aloud. Consider how the consonants you would choose (or combinations
thereof) would differ if you wanted to create a poem about something creepy, something delicate, love,
war, a waterfall, etc.
o Plosives: P / B
o Dental: T / D / TH
o Sibilants: S /SH / Z
o Nasal: N / M / NG
o Fricative: F / V
o Guttural: G / K
o Trill: R
Thoughts from Annie Finch
“Most if not all memorable writing uses word-music to some extent. If you think of any piece of
language you carry in your mind, the odds are good that it is in a strong rhythm and/or that it includes
some kind of word-music, whether it is rhyme (fill in your favorite advertising jingle here), repetition
(‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’; ‘I have a dream…I have a dream,’ ‘ask not what
your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country’); alliteration (‘hot and heavy,’
‘tried and true,’ ‘you go, girl!’); assonance (‘free as a breeze,’ ‘once in a blue moon’); consonance
(‘old as the hills,’ ‘under the weather’), or a combination of consonance and assonance (‘A stitch in
time saves nine’; ‘fourscore and seven years ago, our forefathers…’).” (Finch 188)
“Here’s a story that may help remind us why rhyme persists in spite of it all. Not long ago, Scott
Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoons, developed a condition called Spasmodic Dysphonia, where
the part of the brain that controls speech stops functioning. There is no known cure for the condition.
But as he wrote on his blog,
The part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some
reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords . . . [But
then] while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in
rhyme:
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.
I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it
was similar to regular speech . . . Then something happened.
My brain remapped.
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My speech returned.
. . . A few times I felt my voice slipping away, so I repeated the nursery rhyme and
tuned it back in. By the following night my voice was almost completely normal.
Amazing and mysterious, and borne out by modern studies showing that rhythmical language is
processed in a different part of the brain from prose and normal speech, this story (which presumably
involves the accentual meter of the poem as much as the rhyme) remind us of the power long believed
to be held by rhymed words—the reason, for example, that witches’ spells always rhyme. Poets who
bring rhyme into their poems, and with it the power of symmetry and pattern, are harnessing a
potentially mighty force.” (Finch 204-205)
“Though rhyme has important effects on structure, emphasis, and meaning, that is not its most
important function in a poem. The fundamental reason that rhyme is so prevalent in poetry is that is
sounds good; it provides stimulation to the outer or inner ear. Rhyme may sound artificial if you aren’t
used to it, but after reading poems in rhyme for a while, you will learn to slow down, allowing time for
the rhymes to surround and surprise you until they do feel natural.
The repeated use of rhyme also accustoms the reader to the pleasure of like sounds coming
together: a reader who expects rhyme to occur on a regular basis begins o desire it, and poetry makes
use of this desire to keep the reader involved. A series of rhymed couplets makes use of this recurring
desire for rhyme in the first line of each couplet, and the pleasure of satisfied desire in the second line
of each couplet. Other, more complex rhyme patterns—moving from the abab to the abba stanza, and
to such stanzas as rhyme royal and ottava rima—provide increasingly complex forms of pleasure.
It is important to make this movement of desire and satisfaction work on your poem’s behalf by
keeping an element of unpredictability in your rhyming. Rhymes that are too expected rob he reader of
the sensation of suspense and delay. For example, you can rhyme different parts of speech so the
rhyme will have more significance for the reader: “lied” and “pride” is a more surprising and
interesting rhyme that “lied” and “died.” An occasional omitted rhyme, or a repeated or extra thyme
when you don’t expect it, can provide a useful teasing or surprising effect.
The more organic a rhyme seems, the better; anything forced will distract the reader from the
sweet moment of discovery. The three most common hazards of rhyming all have to do with
unnaturalness: trite, overused rhymes; the forcing of extra words into a poem only for the rhyme; and
unnatural or archaic inversions of speech for the sake of rhyme.
One easy shortcut to help your rhymes sound more natural is to put the more commonplace
word last in the rhyming sequence. A reader will get more satisfaction out of the second of these
couplets than the first:
So I could simply be with you,
I found my way to Timbuktoo.
I found my way to Timbuktoo
So I could simply be with you.
Reading the first couplet, the reader may feel that the poet has gone to great lengths to find a word to
rhyme with ‘you.’ Reading the second couplet, the reader may feel that the poet has cleverly come up
with a simple, inevitable, and natural-sounding rhyme for ‘Timbuktoo.’ As long as you put the simpler
word last, the reader will never know which one you actually thought of first. One the other hand,
sometimes the more surprising word is more powerful at the end….The best advice I’ve ever heard
About how to make rhymes seem natural instead of forced is this, from Richard Wilbur, who got it in
turn from Robert Frost: ‘Don’t rhyme words, rhyme phrases.’ If you think in terms of entire phrases, it
will be easier for the rhyming words to follow inevitably instead of needing to be tacked on.” (Finch
223-226).
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Types of Rhyme: A Mini Glossary
There are dozens of ways to rhyme, and I have outlined them for you in this mini glossary. Have fun
with them, use some of them, and don’t worry about memorizing the various types. You just need to
know the vocabulary terms on page 3 of this packet.
1. Rhymes Defined by Nature of Similarity
assonantal rhyme or assonance: Rhyming with similar vowels, different consonants: dip, limp; man,
prank. This is a type of slant rhyme.
consonant rhyme or consonance: Rhyming with similar consonants, different vowels: limp, lump; bit,
bet. This is a type of slant rhyme.
eye rhyme, sight rhyme, or visual rhyme This refers to rhymes based on similarity of spelling rather
than sound. Often these are highly conventional, and reflect historical changes in pronunciation: love,
move, prove; why, envy; gone, bone.
identical rhyme: A word rhymes with itself. In other words, you re-use the same word at the end of a
line to rhyme it with itself.
monorhyme: The rhyming of many words on a single sound: paws, jaws, laws, was, gauze
perfect rhyme, full rhyme, true rhyme: These terms refer to the immediately recognizable norm:
true/blue, mountain/fountain. Technically, rhyme is the repetition of the same vowel sound on a
stressed syllable as well as on all the syllables that come after the stressed syllable.
There are two types of perfect rhyme:
 rising, single, one-syllable rising, or masculine rhyme (cat, sat)
 falling, double, two-syllable, falling, or feminine rhyme (seven, heaven).
 Occasionally there are even triple or three-syllable rhymes (visible, risible).
rich rhyme (from French rime riche): There are three kinds of rich rhyme:
Homographic (words have different meanings but are spelled the same). Example: “I know you
did not mean / that she was acting mean.”
Homonymic (words look different but sound the same): time, thyme; blue, blew
Identical: Repeating of the exact same word, with same meaning.
slant rhyme, imperfect rhyme, squint rhyme, half rhyme, approximate rhyme, near rhyme, off
rhyme, oblique rhyme, virtual rhyme: These are all general terms referring to rhymes that are close
but not exact: lap, shape; glorious, nefarious; dizzy, easy. The two kinds of slant rhyme are
consonance and assonance.
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2. Rhymes Defined by Relation to Stress Pattern
extra-syllable rhyme, triple rhyme, multiple rhyme, extended rhyme, feminine rhyme: These all
refer to rhyming double or triple or multiple extra-syllable endings: dying, flying; generate, venerate;
salubrious, lugubrious.
feminine rhyme: The stress is on the penultimate (second to last) syllable. (motion, ocean)
light rhyme: Rhyming of a one-syllable with a two-syllable rhyme: frog, dialog; live, prohibitive.
one-syllable rhyme, masculine rhyme: The norm, in which rhyme occurs on the final stressed
syllables. The stress is on the final syllable of the words. (rhyme, sublime)
wrenched rhyme: Rhyming of a stressed syllable with an unstressed syllable. This often occurs in
ballads and folk poetry, often on conventional words like lady, a bee. Also, words that depend on
exaggerated or distorted pronunciation or spelling to rhyme: Tulsa, ulcer; rhinestones, grindstones.
3. Rhymes Defined by Position
By Position in the Line
end rhyme, terminal rhyme: All rhymes occur at line ends—the standard procedure.
initial rhyme, head rhyme: Alliteration or other rhymes at the beginning of a line.
internal rhyme: The end of a line rhymes with the center of a line. There are four types of
internal rhyme:
 Leonine or medial rhyme: a rhyme directly before the caesura of the same line:



Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
cross rhyme: The end of the line rhymes with the center of the adjacent line:
I know there is a summer tree
Beneath the freeing autumn gold
interlaced rhyme: The center of the line rhymes with the center of the adjacent line:
the summer tree lives on beneath
the living freedom of the gold
linked rhyme: The end of a line rhymes with the first syllable of the following line:
I know there is a summer tree
Beneath the autumn gold
By Position in the Stanza or Verse Paragraph
crossed rhyme, alternating rhyme, interlocking rhyme: Rhyming in an abab pattern.
enjambed rhyme: The first consonant of the next line completes the end rhyme:
He arose and I
descended to his side
envelope rhyme, inserted rhyme: Rhyming abba (as in the In Memoriam stanza).
intermittent rhyme: Rhyming every other line, as in the standard ballad quatrain: xaxa.
irregular rhyme: Rhyming that follows no fixed pattern.
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sporadic rhyme, occasional rhyme: Rhyming that occurs unpredictably in a poem with
mostly unrhymed lines.
rimas dissolutas: A medieval French technique which can be use with any length of line or
stanza. The first lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, the second lines of each stanza
rhyme with each other, the third lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, and so on.
thorn line: A line left without rhyme in a generally rhymed passage.
unpatterned rhyme, random rhyme: Rhymes that have no set pattern.
4. Rhyme Across Word Boundaries
apocopate rhyme: Rhyming a line end with a penultimate syllable. The last syllable is dropped in one
rhyming word:
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
broken rhyme: Rhyme using more than one word:
But-oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?
Or rhyme in which one word is broken over the line end:
I caught this morning morning's minion, kingDom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing…
compound rhyme: Rhymes two groups of words (of her, love her).
linked rhyme: Rhyme that depends on completing the rhyme sound by enjambment over the line end:
But what black Boreas wrecked her? He
Came equipped, deadly-electric,
mosaic rhyme (some poets have also called this broken rhyme): rhymes one word with a group
(justice, trust is). Often this kind of rhyme is used for humorous effects, by writers such as Ogden Nash
and Gilbert and Sullivan, or in this famous limerick by a newspaper editor:
“The Pelican” by Dixon Lanier Merritt (1910)
A wonder bird is the pelican,
His mouth can hold more than his belly can,
He can hold in his beak,
Enough food for a week!
I’m damned if I know how the hell he can!
Review: If I were to ask you these questions, could you answer them easily?
1. What are alliteration, assonance, caesura, consonance, end rhyme, onomatopoeia, perfect rhyme, slant
rhyme, and word-music? If shown examples of these in various poems, could you identify them by name?
2. Can you write some of your own examples of perfect rhyme and slant rhyme?
A portion of the rhyme definitions has been adapted from Alberto Rios Glossary of Rhymes online, and he adapted it from Poetic Designs, by Stephen Adams (Broadview
Press, 1997), and Manual of English Meters, by Joseph Malof (Bloomington: Indiana U Press, 1970).
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