The holiday season is gift-giving and uplifting; tinsel and twine; tamales and pignolis; and of course, rhythm and rhyme.

 

Who doesn’t recognize:

“Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays

Welcome Christmas, bring your light

Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays

Welcome in the cold of night,”

as the first verse in Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas?”

Or, upon hearing the first two lines of, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,”

“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,”

who can’t resist reciting the entire poem?

Then there’s that seasonal ear-worm that begins with:

“On the First day of Christmas my true love sent to me

a partridge in a pear tree.”

Every year I look forward to reading The New Yorker’s holiday poem, “Greetings, Friends,” also written in rhyme.

So for this writing tip, I searched for rules on writing poetry in rhyme. I expected the method to be easy to explain. It isn’t. What I discovered was more difficult to learn than calculus.

Rhyming poems use schemes, such as: monorhyme, alternate rhyme, couplet, triplet, enclosed, terza rima, limerick, and villanelle-which is a pattern of placement of words that rhyme. The examples involve a certain rhythm, a beat, or a meter. Don’t worry, I’m not going to define these. You can Google them if you’re interested. Instead, I asked a good friend of mine, Whidbey Island poet, Mike Starring, how he goes about composing some of the best rhymes I’ve ever heard. His answer was simple, “I hear the beat in my head and the words begin to flow. I couldn’t write a decent free verse poem if I tried.” Thank you, Mike.

For more of Mike’s poetry, check out his website: mikestarringpassages.blogspt.com

 

Winter rolled in on thunder clouds,

Meaner than bad weather of lore.

I shut my eyes, tuned out the wind,

Remembering a Christmas before.

One spring, a gentrified tugboat,

Moored in front of my house in May.

They waved to me like old friends,

As I retrieved my mail each day.

I questioned my fascination;

The boat, more than invitingly cute.

A sudden flashback from childhood,

My new neighbor was, “Little Toot!”

Winter brought in rougher seas,

I watched the tug rock and sway…

They waved once more on Christmas Eve,

Upped anchor and motored away.

Since the boat has left here,

Cliff life seems much more alone.

It is like I lost a new friend

Outside the window of my home.

I want no gifts for Christmas,

I’m content with all I’ve got.

And thrilled I witnessed “Little Toot”

Become an anonymous family’s yacht.