Take Time for Rhyme

Is rhymed poetry truly dead
as some have hinted or have said?
If so, I’m doomed, for in my head
there’s no free verse, just rhyme instead.

Don’t poets still read Robert Frost;
do Poe’s tales of woe portray the cost
of sanity, when all is lost?
Aren’t Lady Liberty’s “tempest-tost"?

Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats,
William Shakespeare, poet John Keats.
Bards renowned for their poetic feats,
and all used rhyme–well...isn’t that sweet?

Freestyle poetry is fine, for some.
but writing in rhyme is far from dumb.
In fact, my personal rule of thumb
is to rhyme with flair and great aplomb.

It’s been said that we who rhyme are nuts
rhyming's passé, it won’t make the cuts.
But learning to rhyme takes skill and guts.
Whatever you write steer clear of ruts.

“Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
 The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
 Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
 I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

From Emma Lazarus’ poem, The New Colossus, engraved on the brass plate adorning the base of our Statue of Liberty.

You can read the poem in its entirety below.
You know, for inspiration?

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus
November 2, 1883