Alphonse Nguyen

It all started with my brother’s post from yesterday. He likes the challenge of rhyming in poetry because it can be difficult to arrange the words to fit together and to have them sound good. For the most part I agree with this, but more often than not I am faced with rhymes in the media that make no sense at all. In my opinion, most rhymes are completely unnecessary and are not related to the subject at hand. They sound forced to me, and a good work of art should not be forced.

Let’s analyze parts of my brother’s “My Angel Divine” poem. His intention was to demonstrate how a woman is experienced via the five senses. (For the record, I understand the meaning behind his poetry, but I am demonstrating how easy it is to misinterpret it.)

The sight of your eyes,
My happy demise.

I think he meant to say, “The sight of you on my eyes”, but I can’t think of a way to shrink it down to five syllables. Anyways, because of his rhyme usage, his poem implies that if he looks at his angel divine, he will die, similar to how Medusa turns people into stone. How romantic.

The touch of your hand,
I can’t even stand.

So the touch of his angel divine repulses him? That’s interesting. Well, those were examples of how the rhyming simply doesn’t work. I will provide you with some more, this time from Crazy For You. Don’t get me wrong, I love this musical and I respect the lyrics. But some of the rhymes just don’t work.

From “I Can’t Be Bothered Now” sung by Bobby:
Bad news, go ‘way!
Call ‘round some day
In March or May –
I can’t be bothered now.
My bonds and shares
May fall downstairs –

1. Why would anybody want bad news to come back at all?
2. What does the actual month have anything to do with it?
3. He’s in banking, which is why he talks about bonds and shares, and yes, his business may not be doing so well, but the imagery of money falling down the stairs doesn’t do much for me.

From “Things Are Looking Up” sung by Bobby:
It’s a great little world we live in!
Oh I’m happy as a pup
Since love looked up -

Really? Happy as a pup?

I suppose I should show you some examples of good rhymes. This is an excerpt from “Liposuction” by Da Vinci’s Notebook. Now I have nothing against overweight people, but I think the lyrics are funny due to the impressive rhymes.

If all your fancy diet plans have got your head a’swimmin’
And everything you eat must be approved by Richard Simmons
Stop eatin’ that birdseed, friend
’cause what you really need is
A procedure guaranteed not to impede your need to feed
Liposuction
…
If you’ve abandoned exercise and your gut keeps gettin’ vaster
Your thighs are growin’ oversize, and your butt’s gone off to pasture
If you want a new demeanor
And you’re keen on gettin’ leaner
Then your remedy is an M.D.
With a fancy vacuum cleaner
…
If your waistline is a’surgin’
And in need of some reversion
And your overall weight dispersion’s
Gettin’ on the verge o’ perversion
I’m encouragin’ an excursion
To go searchin’ for a surgeon
And get your emergency purgin’
Of the burgeoning fat emergin’ from your chin

I think rhymes work best when used for comedy. In fact, I will only use rhymes in my own compositions for that purpose.

Anyways, since I attacked my brother’s poem, he has the chance to take a crack at mine. I believe that poems work better when they flow freely and when the imagery matches the subject. Of course, I’m no poetry expert, but I still think it’s a decent attempt.

“Music” by Alphonse Nguyen

If the heart is the only broken instrument that works
Then let me try to sing a song that fixes my mistakes
My heart skips a beat when it recalls your pleasant voice
For only when I’m with you is our song complete

So I will wait until we bridge the gap between our two souls

And each sweet note that my violin plays for you
Is a kiss I have plucked from a string
Lingering on your soft ears in pure resonance
And caresses those wonderful, musical lips

If music is simply love that’s searching for a word
Then let me modulate my heart into a tune

So I will wait until we bridge
So I will wait until we bridge
The gap between our two souls

And each sweet note that my violin plays for you
Is a kiss I have plucked from a string
Lingering on your soft ears in pure resonance
And caresses those wonderful, musical lips

Please note, this is all just my personal opinion, and it does not necessarily apply to every case of rhyming out there, nor should it be meant as an attack on anybody’s poetry (except on my brother’s). So bring it on, Anton! Bring it on.

EDIT on March 8/09: My brother made a rebuttal, and here is my answer/clarification:

In self-defense, I actually do consider all the layers of poetry as best as I can, and I don’t take everything literally. Also, I do like some poems that rhyme (I provided an example of that).

But you’re missing my own points, which were mainly on the usage of rhyming itself (if you reread carefully, note that I wasn’t attacking the meter or anything else about the poem). I was questioning the need for rhymes in the first place, because sure, it’s a good challenge to get the words to sound nice together, but does it serve a real purpose? Especially if it obscures the meaning you want to convey?

In fact, you’re demonstrating exactly what I was trying to show myself: that rhymes can take away from the understanding of a poem. I know very well you meant for this poem to be about love and longing (and I admit you deliver that idea well), and that you don’t want us to think that she repulses you (yes, it is a nice imagery, that one would happily die over her, and that one would feel so weak with stomach-butterflies from the touch of her hands). But the fact is, despite knowing your intentions, I was still able to come up with an alternative (and yes, very literal), albeit gruesome, interpretation, simply because of the rhymes. And that was the point of my blog entry, that the rhymes made me interpret your meaning differently.

I guess in the end, that’s what poetry is all about: how the reader interprets it, simply because there are so many different ways to analyze it. I’m just saying, why limit one’s poems with rhymes when you can lift the restrictions to help make it less ambiguous and easier to understand? Keep the meter, it does make the poem flow and it does capture the feeling of love at first sight. But it’s the rhymes that make me think, “Couldn’t the writer have come up with a different way of saying that?”

(Anyways, the ‘mental eclipse’ line is also my favourite.)