Poetic Elements Label the Rhyme Scheme

What is a Poem?

Poem is a writing piece with expression of ideas, feelings, imaginations with particular attention to diction involving rhyme, rhythm, and imagery.

The Poetic Elements are as follows:

1. Structure and form
2. Speaker
3. Meter
4. Rhyme and rhyme scheme
5. Figurative language
6. Theme
7. Tone and mood
8. Sound and rhythm
9. Syntax
10. Subject

Rhyme Scheme

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes seen at the end of every line in a Poem. Rhymes make the poems seem interesting and help to remember the lines easily. The rhyme scheme is an integral part of the formal verse. The rhyme scheme is marked with the use of capital alphabets. Modern poetry is mostly written in rhyme in free verse which mostly avoids the use of rhyme schemes.

Example

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (By Donald Barthelme)

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,            (A)

How I wonder what you are.           (A)

Up above the world so high,           (B)

Like a diamond in the sky.               (B)

This poem follows the AABB rhyme scheme. Star and are rhymes so they are marked with A, sky and high rhymes, so they are marked with B.

Types of Rhyme Scheme

• Monorhyme
• Alternate rhyme
• Couplet
• Triplet
• Ballad
• Limerick

Monorhyme

Poems that are written with the same rhyme scheme. Every line ends with the same rhyme scheme.

Example: Monorhyme for the Shower by Dick Davis.

A Monorhyme for the Shower (By Dick Davis)

Lifting her arms to soap her hair                    (A)

Her pretty breasts respond – and there         (A)

The movement of that buoyant pair               (A)

Is like a spell to make me swear…                   (A)

Alternate Rhyme

Poems that are written in alternate thyme scheme. It is also known as the ABAB rhyme scheme.

Example:

The One (By Crystal R. Adame)

The one who brought me down to earth,    A

And held me every day.                                B

The one who gracefully gave me birth,         A

And said, I love you in every way.                  B

The one who taught me everything,              C

Like how to crawl and walk.                            D

The one who taught me how to sing              C

After learning how to talk.                               D

Couplet

Two-line stanzas with the same rhyme scheme. It appears as an AA rhyme scheme.

Example: Shall I compare there to a summer’s day – Shakespeare

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,             G

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.             G

Triplet

Three-line stanza with same rhyme pattern. It appears as an AAA rhyme scheme.

Example: Three Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Sax

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,                      A

who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),       A

that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.                              A

Ballad

It contains three stanzas with the rhyme scheme ABABBCBC and is followed by BCBC.

Example:  La Belle Dame Sans Merci – by John Donne.

Limerick

Five Lined poem with the rhyme scheme AABBA.

Example:   Old Man by Edward Lear

There was an Old Man with a beard.               A

Who said, “It is just as I feared!                        A

Two Owls and a Hen,                                        B

Four Larks and a Wren,                                     B

Have all built their nests in my beard!”            A