In a Perfect World

You know, I like writing poems with messages similar to this. However, this one has a particular style that gets more and more appealing as I read it. The wording and concept are simple, but it really shines because it's heartfelt, and that can be extremely difficult to convey in writing.

However, I think this piece is still suffering a bit from a problem that I had to deal with not too long ago. This poem is surprisingly moving as it is, but in order to make it better, you shouldn't rhyme every couplet with the exact same ending sound. Let me show you what I mean.

"In a perfect world there is no money,
No way to look at anyone funny."

Now, money and funny rhyme. However, they don't sound as natural as the other lines because money and funny both have two syllables.

To clarify, words rhyme with their last syllable. If the emphasis on a word is placed on the last syllable, such as in the word 'unfurled', then it's easy to rhyme it with 'world'. But it doesn't work as well if the syllable you're rhyming doesn't have the emphasis.

In other words, the 'ee' ending sound of 'money (MUN-ee)' and 'funny (FUN-ee)' do not have the emphasis, so when you rhyme them, it doesn't sound as natural and fluid as it could be.

Now, here's a relevant tip to help you when you're writing rhyming poetry.

In contrast to a freeverse poem, a rhyming poem has a much more limited range of sentences you can use to express an idea, since the last words need to rhyme, obviously.

Freeverse: Alas, my friend, this is not true,
This is not the home of you or me

This freeverse version is more easily understood; in freeverse, you don't need to rhyme, so you don't have to mess with the word arrangement. When you say 'the home of me or you', you're bending the rules of commonly used grammar to make it rhyme.

Rearranging the grammar slightly is absolutely fine, even encouraged in some cases, when making a poem - that's part of being poetic. However, going overboard on altering the syntax just to rhyme the words will make the line sound forced, unnatural, and disruptive of the flow. (Don't worry, your poem flows just fine; I'm just saying that this is what will happen if you switch the words around too much.)

Here's how you can fix that.

Consider the rhyming pairs of life/strife, race/face, true/you, same/shame, and hate/mate. What do all of these have in common? Both the ending vowel and consonant sounds are exactly the same - in fact, excluding true and you, the last three letters in each pair are identical.

(I'll refer to word pairs with identical ending vowel and consonant sounds as 'exact rhyming pairs' or 'exact word pairs' to avoid confusion. For example, hate/mate is an 'exact rhyming pair' because ATE is the ending consonant-and-vowel sound that they share.)

The thing is, you don't need to make the ending *consonant* sounds the same to write a convincing rhyme. Here's a small excerpt from a poem that I wrote.

"We never forget the paths to the future we take,
And we never forget those who guide us along the way."

Take/way is not an 'exact rhyming pair' because the -ake and -ay ending consonant sounds aren't the same, but it still works as a couplet for two reasons. One, the final vowel sound is the same, and two, perhaps more importantly, it provides a naturally-sounding flow; even if the rhyme isn't very good, the flow is what the reader will pay more attention to in the end.

In order to create an exact rhyming pair using a word like 'break' or 'make', I would have to rearrange the words.

"We never forget the paths to the future we take,
And we never forget those who, our choices, help make."

Eh... just doesn't have the same ring to it.

In short, if you can't make an exact rhyming pair without jumbling up the sentence in the process, don't use an exact rhyming pair. Don't be afraid to use two words with differing consonant sounds, like take/way, gaze/hate, time/find. In my opinion, rhyming words like that makes the writing sound more professional, anyway.

Not sure if I totally botched that explanation (tell me if I did), but either way, your piece is still awesome. Will you post more of these in the future? If you have some other works lying around, I'd love to read them.

Its an short and sweet poem with a "punch on your face" message. An artistic reminder of how our world is so imperfect.. I loved it! Just no words..

This is a really good poem. I really liked it! This isn't a perfect world, but I wish it was. Just like you said in your poem we need a perfect world. I really liked this poem because it was so perfect about a perfect world....
I love it

Hi there FluttershyFan, Crim here to review your poem.

I really liked this poem, it's simple but conveys a very powerful message which I'm sure every reader can relate to and agree with. You've got a very strong rhythm and rhyme which I actually really like - I'm not often a fan of rhyming poetry because I feel like it can sometimes hold the writer back a little, however this is not the case with yours! Generally your rhyming doesn't seem forced either, which is always a good thing. I also think that the repetition is really effective, I tend to shy away from poems with repetition because they have a tendency to become boring but yours certainly doesn't, which made me really like it.

My favourite line has definitely got to be:

'In a perfect world there is no death,

No way to take a final breath.'

You have the rhyme and rhythm spot on in this couplet, I loved it! Your spelling and grammar is spot on, so kudos to you for that. However I do have a few nitpicks which I'll discuss:

Firstly, this line:
'No way to feel any shame.'
^ This line seems to be lacking in syllables which means that it doesn't fit the flow nearly as nicely as any of the the others that flow and fit so beautifully! I could suggest perhaps adding in an extra word or to, like this:
'No way for anyone to feel shame'
For example, however I'm sure you could come up with a better way of adding more words than that.

Also I have a few issues with this line:

'In a perfect world there is no race,'

Race is (I quote wikipedia here) a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical, historical, linguistic, religious, and/or social affiliation. So really a perfect world would have race, because race is simply a classification. What I think you mean is racISM or prejudice against those of a different race. So you may want to tweak this about a little. However I absolutely adore the line that follows it.

Overall, this poem is really sweet and if only the world could be perfect! Maybe it's imperfections make it perfect though? Who knows. I think that this poem could be really amazing if you tweak it a little. Keep writing, with practice you can only improve!

really great.