"... Of Exemplary Poeticisms—/ Be they great, inadvertent, or unsound— / As Uttered by our most Esteemed Exemplars / And Guardians of Popular Culture."
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck.
I’d say that in high school. I’d think it. I’d fear it. Poesy is itself an intimidating word. The lexicon is no more inviting: iambs, pentameter, feet, trochees, anapests. As a further discouragement, a deep understanding of meter yields little; overly metrical writing is annoying and provincial. That kind of language, that kind of rhythm, is so unnatural it’s become outmoded.
Or so I thought. As I worked on a Shakespeare project—I took apart the known works of Shakespeare and put them back together as a new play, All The World’s a Grave (it came out in 2008)—I was immersed in meter, which I realized isn’t so complicated after all, and is the firmament of not only poetry, but song lyrics and oratory.