An onomatopoeia is a word whose sound is similar to the action it refers to, such as “buzz” or “hiss.” Using onomatopoetic words in a poem can help increase the sensory impact of the poem, creating vivid imagery because the words themselves evoke sounds as well as meaning.
If you are writing rhyming poetry you may occasional need to include onomatopoeia rhymes in your poems. Here is a list of a few hundred onomatopoeia rhymes you can use as you write.
Acrostics are one of the easiest forms of poetry to write because they just have a single rule and they don’t have to rhyme. In this video lesson, I show how you can create your own acrostic poems in just a few steps.
Funny poetry is a style of poetry in it’s own right, different from the many other types of more serious verse. A style of poetry is often called a genre (pronounced ZHAHN-ruh). Other styles, or genres, include love poetry, cowboy poetry, jump-rope rhymes, epic poetry (really, really long poems), and so on.
In addition to styles or genres of poetry, there are also poetic forms. A form is a particular type of poem with rules for how to write it. For example, you may have heard of a limerick or a haiku or an acrostic. These are poetic forms, and there are rules you can follow to write them.
In chapter 6 I discuss some of the traditional forms for funny poetry, such as limericks, clerihews, funny haiku, and so on. Each of these traditional forms has rules describing how many lines it must be, how many syllables it must contain, or what the poem can be about.
In this chapter, however, I’ll show you some of the common types of funny poetry that don’t have traditional names, and don’t have so many rules you have to follow. While there are as many types of funny poems as there are poets writing them, and any one poem may contain features of several different kinds, there are some types of funny poems you will see again and again. These include:
Opposites / reverse / backward poems
Tongue twisters
Repetition poems
List poems
Updated nursery rhymes
Keep reading and you will see how you can create your own versions of these popular types of funny poetry.
Opposites/Reverse/Backward Poems
The opposite, reverse, or backward poem is a poem in which everything you normally expect is reversed. For example, if you wear your hat on your feet and your shoes on your head, you’ve got the beginnings of great a backward poem.
Backward poems are easy to write. All you have to do is make everything wrong. Purple bananas. Green stop signs. Three year-old parents. And so on. Let’s try a few. Here is the beginning of a poem about some backward people who live in a backward town.
The backward folks in backward town
live inside out and upside down.
They work all night and sleep all day.
They love to work and hate to play.
The parents there are three years old.
They save their trash and dump their gold.
They fly their cars and stand on chairs.
They comb their teeth and floss their hairs.
Now it’s your turn. See if you can write another stanza about the backward folks in backward town. What else do they do backward? Do they watch TV by turning it off? Do they cook dinner by putting it in the freezer? You decide.
Here’s another one.
My name is Mr. Backward.
I do things in reverse.
I’m happy when I’m crying.
I’m better when I’m worse.
My shoes are on my shoulders.
My hat is on my toes.
I smell things with my fingers.
I write things with my nose.
Now you try it. Tell me more about Mr. Backward. What other crazy things does he do? Does he wear a suit to bed and pajamas to work? Does he eat dinner in the morning and breakfast at night? It’s all up to you. You decide what silly things you want Mr. Backward to do and then write them down.
How one more reverse/backward poem? This one will be about a person who does everything in reverse. But strangest of all, she also talks backward!
This one is a little harder than the other two, because every line in the poem is backward. But let’s have a look at it first, and then I’ll show you how it’s done.
Betty Backward is name my.
Reverse in but speak I.
Crazy I’m think just might you
Converse I how hear to.
Not only is this poem about a person who is a little bit backward, everything she says is completely backward as well. If you read each line backward, you will discover a whole new poem!
So how do you write a poem like this? It’s actually easier than it looks. First you write a normal poem, and then you reverse the lines. There’s just one more rule: Because the poem needs to rhyme after it’s reversed, you also need to rhyme the first words of your lines. The first words of your lines will end up being the last words when your poem is reversed.
Let’s add another stanza to the poem about Backward Betty, and I’ll show you how to do it. First let’s write it forward, here’s the first line of the new stanza.
No one understands me.
Notice that the first word of this line is “no.” That means our next line needs to begin with a word that rhymes with “no.” Let’s try “so.”
So they think I’m strange.
Now let’s add two more lines with rhyming first words, where the last word of the second line rhymes with “strange.”
My speech may be confusing,
but I know I’ll never change.
Lastly, let’s put it all together and then reverse it. Here are both stanzas together.
Betty Backward is name my.
Reverse in but speak I.
Crazy I’m think just might you
Converse I how hear to.
Me understands one no.
Strange I’m think they so.
But confusing be may speech my.
Change never I’ll know I.
Now that you know how to do it, see if you can add one or two more stanzas of your own to Backward Betty. Have fun!
Tongue Twisters
What’s a tongue twister? A tongue twister is a poem that is nearly impossible to read without tripping up as you recite it. You’ve probably heard of “rubber baby buggy bumpers” or “she sells seashells by the seashore.” As they say, “try to say that three times fast.” Chances are your tongue won’t be able to do it.
So how do you write a tongue twister? How do you write a poem that is guaranteed to trip up all but the most careful reader? It’s not that hard, actually. All you need to do is make a list of words that sound a lot alike and then putting them together.
For example, let’s take “sea sells seashells by the seashore” and see if we can’t come up with a few more words that sound like “she sells” and “seashells.” How about these:
Smells
Sails
Sure
Cellars
Next, why don’t we give this girl a name? Let’s call her Shelley Sellers. So where, by the seashore, would Shelley Sellers sell her shells? How about Shelley’s Seashell Cellars? So here we go.
Shelley Sellers sells her shells
at Shelley’s Seashell Cellars.
Now we know who she is and where she sells her shells, but who buys them? Who is Shelley selling shells to? Let’s look at our list of words. Smelly rhymes with Shelley, and dwellers rhymes with Sellers, so what if she sells her shells to smelly seashore dwellers?
She sells shells (and she sure sells!)
to smelly seashore dwellers.
What makes a tongue twister hard to say is the fact that it has lots of similar, but slightly different sounds. For example, “She sells seashells by the seashore” has a lot of “s” and “sh” sounds, as well as both long and short “e” sounds. In fact, “she sells” is the reverse of “seashells” in terms of the sounds. This makes it somewhat confusing to say; it trips up the tongue.
If you keep going with this idea of lots of “s” and “sh” sounds, you could create an entire tongue twister poem, perhaps something like this:
Smelly dwellers shop the sales
at Shelley’s seashell store.
Salty sailors stop their ships
for seashells by the shore.
Shelley’s shop, a shabby shack,
so sandy, salty, smelly,
still sells shells despite the smells;
a swell shell shop for Shelley.
But “s” and “sh” aren’t the only sounds you could repeat a lot to trip up the reader’s tongue. Using lots of words with “b” and “g” sounds, you might write a poem about someone named “Gabby” who bought a “beagle” that “begged” for “bagels.”
Gabby bought a baby beagle
At the beagle baby store.
Gabby gave her beagle kibble
But he begged for bagels more.
Or maybe with “s” and “z” sounds, you could write about someone named “Suzie” who like to “snooze” in “zoos.”
Suzie likes to snooze in zoos.
Suzie chooses zoos to snooze.
Or with “sh” and “ch” sounds, you might write about a “ship shop” that sells “shrimp ships” and a “chip shop” that sells “shrimp chips.”
See what I mean? Now it’s your turn. See if you can come up with a line or two that are particularly hard to say, make them rhyme, and you’ve got a tongue twister poem!
Repetition
Repetition means repeating words, phrases, lines, or entire stanzas in a poem. Using repetition in a poem can make it easier to read and remember.
One of the easiest ways to use repetition in a poem is to repeat the first words of every line or every other line. For example, you might start each line with something like, “When I was young…” or “Have you ever seen…” or “I hope I never…” or “I wish that I…”
Long before I became a poet, way back when I was in college, one of my teachers asked the class to write a repetition poem, and this is what I turned in:
Once I was a queen bee, but I had a case of hives.
Once I was a golf ball. That was how I learned to drive.
Once I was an ocean. I liked waving at the beach.
Once I was an apple. I was pretty as a peach.
Once I was a jellyfish, until I had to jam.
Once I was a cracker, and I only weighed a gram.
Once I was a cornfield, getting lost inside the maze.
Once I was I forest. Now I’m pining for those days.
I’ll admit it’s pretty silly. Each begins with me imagining something ridiculous that I used to be, and ends with a pun of some sort, just as we discussed in Chapter 4.
Why don’t you try picking a few words and using them at the beginning of each line of a poem?
You can also repeat entire sentences throughout a poem. For example, imagine a person who thinks they are beautiful, though maybe they are not quite as pretty as they think. You might then use the line, “I think I’m rather beautiful” throughout the poem, like this:
I think I’m rather beautiful.
My head is flat and square.
I think I’m rather beautiful.
My ears grow curly hair.
I think I’m rather beautiful.
I’ve wrinkly purple skin.
I think I’m rather beautiful.
I’ve mushrooms on my chin.
Can you think of a few more ways to describe this person? What about the feet? Are they size 23? The knees? The hands? The lips? Think about it and then add another stanza. Or two. Or three. When you are all done describing this unusual person, find a way to end your poem, perhaps like this.
I think I’m rather beautiful.
My nose is long and blue.
I think I’m rather beautiful.
I hope you think so too.
You might notice this is also a “backward” poem, because this person is the opposite of what they think they are. Remember what I said earlier: any one funny poem may contain features of several different types.
List Poems
Many famous poets, including authors such as Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, and even Dr. Seuss have written funny list poems. A list poem usually consists of three parts, a beginning, an ending, and a long list of things in the middle.
For example, take a look at my poem “My Parents Sent Me to the Store.”
My parents sent me to the store
to buy a loaf of bread. I came home with a puppy
and a parakeet instead.
I came home with a guinea pig,
a hamster and a cat,
a turtle and a lizard
and a friendly little rat.
I also had a monkey
and a mongoose and a mouse. Those animals went crazy when
I brought them in the house.
They barked and yelped and hissed
and chased my family out the door.
My parents never let me
do the shopping anymore.
You’ll see that the first two lines are the beginning, the last six lines are the ending, and everything else is the list in the middle.
One way to get started with list poems is to take a list poem that someone else has written and see if you can add another stanza or two to the list in the middle. Since “My Parents Sent Me to the Store” is all about animals this child brought home, and each stanza has two rhyming words, you would just need to think of two more animals that rhyme. For example, you might rhyme fox and ox, or goose and moose, or eagle and beagle, or snail and whale, and you might come up with something like this:
I came home with a goldfish,
and a guppy, and a goose,
an eagle and a beagle
and a mammoth and a moose.
You can also write a list poem from scratch by following these steps:
Decide what your list will include. Foods? Sports? Games? Musical instruments? Clothes?
Find as many rhyming words as you can for your list. For example, if you were writing a list poem about foods, you might rhyme cake/steak, cheese/peas, potatoes/tomatoes, beans/greens, and so on.
Think of a beginning and an ending for your list poem.
Start writing.
Today I decided to write a list poem about clothes. I can think of rhymes like shirt/skirt, boots/suits, bows/hose, caps/wraps, and so on. Now I just need a beginning and an ending and I can start working on my list. How’s this?
Wherever Dressy Bessie goes,
she always wears too many clothes.
That sounds pretty good to me. Now I can make a list of all the clothes she wears, like twelve pairs of slacks, eighteen shirts, thirty-seven hats, and so forth. For an ending, I’ll need to think of what would happy to Dressy Bessie with all these clothes on. Maybe she can’t stand up any longer, or she can’t squeeze through the door.
Now Bessie can’t fit through the door.
She never goes out anymore.
Now all I need is my list, like this:
Wherever Dressy Bessy goes,
she always wears too many clothes. She puts on six or seven shirts,
eleven hats, and twenty skirts,
a half a dozen anoraks,
a pair, or two, or three of slacks.
She even wears eight pairs of boots,
and sixty-six seersucker suits. Now Bessy can’t fit through the door.
She never goes out anymore.
Why don’t you see if you can add a few more lines to this poem. Perhaps you can use some of the rhymes I didn’t, like bows/hose or caps/wraps.
Or maybe you could come up with your own list poem with some rhyming foods, animals, or something else.
Updated Nursery Rhymes
Another popular way to write funny poems is to take old poems that you already know and change them to make them funnier. The easiest way to do this is with Mother Goose nursery rhymes. It only takes a few steps:
Pick a nursery rhyme, such as Humpty Dumpty or Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Find the words in the poem that rhyme.
Change the rhymes to make them funnier.
Let’s take Humpty Dumpty as an example. This old nursery rhyme goes:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
As you can see, “wall” rhymes with “fall” and “men” rhymes with “again.” But what if we put Humpty somewhere other than the wall? Maybe he sat in a tree, or on a cat, or on the moon. Then we might rhyme tree with bee, or cat with hat, or moon with June, and we might end up with something like this:
Humpty Dumpty sat in a tree.
Humpty Dumpty got stung by a bee.
He fell out and hit his head,
And now he thinks his name is Fred.
Or maybe something like this:
Humpty Dumpty went to the moon,
To eat in the restaurant they opened last June.
He said, “All the food is delicious up here.
I just wish the restaurant had more atmosphere.”
What about Mary Had a Little Lamb? If we changed it to make it funnier, we might end up with something like this:
Mary had a little yam,
with stuffing, gravy, pie and ham.
Now Mary isn’t any thinner.
Welcome to Thanksgiving dinner.
Now you try it. Pick your favorite nursery rhyme, locate the rhyming words, change them for something else, and come up with a brand-new funny poem of your own.
More, More, More!
In this chapter, you learned a few different ways to write funny poems, but there are many, many more. In the next chapter, we will look at some of the traditional forms of poetry that can be used to create funny poems, including limericks, clerihews, and even funny haikus.
Kenn Nesbitt, former U.S. Children's Poet Laureate, is celebrated for blending humor and heart in his poetry for children. Known for books such as "My Cat Knows Karate" and "Revenge of the Lunch Ladies," he captivates young readers globally.
In poetry, you will often find that the writer repeats sounds, words, ideas, lines, or even entire stanzas. For example, a poem might start each line with the same words, or it might repeat a stanza several times, making a chorus or “refrain.” When you repeat something in a poem, this is called “repetition.” Repetition helps draw the reader’s attention to a thought, idea, or feeling. It can make the main idea of the poem more memorable. Just as readers enjoy rhythm and rhyme in poems, repetition can also be pleasant. Here are a few ways you can include repetition in your poems.
Repeat the Beginnings of Lines
Probably the easiest way to include repetition in a poem is to repeat the first words of each line through most or all of the poem. Pick a few words that describe the main idea of your poem and use those words over and over again. For example, if you were writing a poem to tell someone how nice they are, you might begin each line with, “I like you because…” If you were writing a poem about what gifts you would like from Santa Claus for Christmas, you might start each line with, “This Christmas I want…”
And your repeated phrase doesn’t have to be long. It can be just one or two words, such as “You are…” or “School is…”
In my poem “I Didn’t Go Camping,” I repeat the words, “I Didn’t…” at the beginning of many of the lines, like this:
I Didn’t Go Camping
I didn’t go camping. I didn’t go hiking. I didn’t go fishing. I didn’t go biking.
I didn’t go play on the slides at the park. I didn’t watch shooting stars way after dark.
I didn’t play baseball or soccer outside. I didn’t go on an amusement park ride.
I didn’t throw Frisbees. I didn’t fly kites, or have any travels, or see any sights.
I didn’t watch movies with blockbuster crowds, or lay on the front lawn and look at the clouds.
I didn’t go swimming at pools or beaches, or visit an orchard; and pick a few peaches.
I didn’t become a guitarist or drummer, but, boy, I played plenty of Minecraft this summer.
I have used this kind of repetition in quite a few poems. If you like poems that repeat the first words of the lines, here are a few more you might enjoy:
Another way to emphasize or strengthen the idea of a poem is to repeat a single line over and over, possibly on every other line.
Here’s an example of a poem where I have repeated a line of conversation where one person says the same thing over and over.
I Need to Go Potty
I need to go potty. Just hold it. You’re fine. I need to go potty. I heard you. Don’t whine. I need to go potty. You just went at noon. I need to go potty. We’re getting there soon. I need to go potty. You’ll just have to wait. I need to go potty. Whoops. Now it’s too late.
In this poem, the repetition of the line, “I need to go potty” emphasizes the urgency with which the speaker is trying to make his or her point. Unfortunately, the other person in the poem — probably the parent — doesn’t realize just how urgent the situation is until it’s too late.
Repeating Several Lines
When you repeat several lines, or an entire stanza, throughout a poem, this is called a “refrain.” In a song it’s called a “chorus.” Using refrains is another way to emphasize or strengthen the main idea or feeling of your poem. And because a refrain in a poem can be just like a chorus in a song, using refrains can make your poems feel or sound more like songs.
Here’s a poem I wrote about a five-year old pirate named Francis who, because of his age, was not yet very good at pirating. Notice that I repeat the same lines at the end of every other stanza, making the poem sound a lot like a “sea shanty” (a sailor’s work song) much like “Yo Ho, Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me).”
Francis the Five-Year-Old Pirate
He ain’t got a beard and he ain’t got a scar. He ain’t a cantankerous codger. He isn’t a scum with a tankard of rum. He don’t fly a black Jolly Roger.
He ain’t got a parrot that sits on his shoulder. He isn’t all ornery and irate. He’s not old enough to be rugged and rough. He’s Francis the Five-Year-Old Pirate. Yo, Ho! Yo, Ho! He’s Francis the Five-Year-Old Pirate.
He don’t like to pillage. He don’t like to rob. He don’t like to bury his treasure. He don’t like to shoot or to ransack and loot or commandeer ships for his pleasure.
No ships has he sank or made men walk the plank, or hang from the yardarm and gyrate. And everyone knows he don’t keelhaul his foes. He’s Francis the Five-Year-Old Pirate. Yo, Ho! Yo, Ho! He’s Francis the Five-Year-Old Pirate.
He ain’t got a cutlass. He ain’t got a sword. He ain’t got a musket or dagger. He ain’t learned his duty to plunder for booty and strut with a braggardly swagger.
He don’t have an eyepatch. He don’t have a hook. He’s barely a buccaneer flyweight He ain’t got no gold cuz he’s not very bold. He’s Francis the Five-Year-Old Pirate. Yo, Ho! Yo, Ho! He’s Francis the Five-Year-Old Pirate.
Now It’s Your Turn
At the risk of repeating myself (see what I did there?), repetition can be a very effective way to get your point across in a poem, and to make the poem more memorable and enjoyable to read.
Now that you’ve seen several different ways to include repetition in poems, I hope you’ll be on the lookout for in when you read poetry, and maybe even try your hand at writing some repetition poems of your own.
Kenn Nesbitt, former U.S. Children's Poet Laureate, is celebrated for blending humor and heart in his poetry for children. Known for books such as "My Cat Knows Karate" and "Revenge of the Lunch Ladies," he captivates young readers globally.
In the last two Rhythm in Poetry lessons, we discussed the “iamb” and the “trochee.” Each of these is a two-syllable poetic “foot.” But iambs and trochees aren’t the only kinds of poetic feet. There are other types of two-syllable feet and even a few different three-syllable feet.
Let’s See the Spondee
The “spondee,” (pronounced “SPON-dee”) is a two-syllable foot in which bothsyllables are stressed. It is not as common as the iamb and the trochee, but it has a very interesting sound, as you’ll hear in a moment.
A poem written in spondees is said to be in “spondaic.” For example, my poem “Snow Day” is written in spondaic, meaning that every syllable is a stressed syllable. Here’s how it begins:
/ / “No school! / / Just snow. / / Way cool! / / Let’s go!”
As you can see, each line in this poem has two syllables, and each syllable is stressed, meaning each line is a single spondee.
While there are some two-syllable words in English in which both syllables are stressed, such as “bookmark,” “handshake,” “groundhog,” “picnic,” “sunset,” etc., most spondees are formed with two words, such as “hip hop,” “sit down,” “go slow,” and so on.
If you are writing poems in spondaic, you can use one-syllable or two-syllable words, as long as all of the syllables are stressed. In general, it is harder to write in spondaic than in iambic or trochaic but, now that you know about spondees, maybe you’ll want to give it a try?
Let’s Meet the Triple Feet
In English, it’s possible for poetic feet to contain more than two syllables. A poem written using three-syllable feet is called “triple meter.”
The most common three-syllable feet are the “dactyl” (pronounced “DAK-tuhl”) and the “anapest” (pronounced “AN-uh-pest”). Let’s start with the dactyl.
Fingers on Your Feet
Have you heard of the flying dinosaur called the pterodactyl? From the Greek language, “ptero” means “wing” and “dactyl” means “finger.” So a pterodactyl gets it’s name from the fact that it has fingers on its wings.
In poetry, a “dactyl” also gets its name from fingers, but in a different way. Just as your fingers have three joints, or knuckles, a dactyl has three syllables.
When a poem is written in dactyls, we call it “dactylic” (pronounced “dack-TILL-ick”). Some examples of dactylic words include “poetry,” “alphabet,” “excellent,” etc. Do you notice how each of these words is stressed on the first syllable (PO-uh-tree, AL-fuh-bet, EX-suh-lent)?
One common form of poem written in dactylic is the “double-dactyl,” also known as a “higgledy-piggledy.” It is called a double-dactyl because every line contains two dactyls, and one of the words is a six-syllable “double-dactylic,” word. It is sometimes called a “higgledy-piggledy” because these are often the first words of the poem.
Here’s one I wrote about Doctor Frankenstein and his monster:
/ - - / - - Higgledy-piggledy / - - / - - Modern Prometheus / - - / - - Victor von Frankenstein, / - - / made a new life
/ --/ - - Bioelectrically. / - - / - - Creature was lonely, said, / - - / - - "If you're not busy, please / - - / make me a wife."
The Anapest Strikes Back
Just as the word “dactyl” comes from Greek, the word “anapest” comes from a Greek word meaning “struck back” or “reversed.” This is because the anapest is the reverse or opposite of the dactyl. That is, an anapest is a three-syllable foot where the stress is on the last syllable instead of the first.
When you write a poem using anapests, it is called “anapestic.” One of the best-known anapestic poems in English is Clement Moore’s famous poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” also called “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
- - / - - / - - / - - / ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house - - / - - / - - / - - / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
Another author who wrote stories in anapestic was none other than Dr. Seuss. For example, here are a couple of lines from his book Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
- - / - - / - - / - - / You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. - - / - - / - - / - - / You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
As you can see, every third syllable is stressed, giving the poem the same rhythm as “A Visit from St. Nicholas”
While, as Dr. Seuss’ said, “You have feet in your shoes,” you also now have several new “feet” in your head. Poetic feet, that is. And, in just these few lessons, you have learned nearly everything you need to know about rhythm in poetry.
You can use these new feet, and the ones we learned earlier, to create rhythmical – or “metrical” – poems of your own and make them just as fun to read as the works of famous poets like Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and Jack Prelutsky.
Kenn Nesbitt, former U.S. Children's Poet Laureate, is celebrated for blending humor and heart in his poetry for children. Known for books such as "My Cat Knows Karate" and "Revenge of the Lunch Ladies," he captivates young readers globally.
When you read poems, you will sometimes come across things that don’t sound right to you. Often, this is because people pronounce some words differently depending on where they grew up. The writer of the poem may have grown up somewhere that they pronounce things a little differently than you do.
Probably the most well-known example is the word “tomato.” In Britain, this word is pronounced “toe-MAH-toe,” whereas in America it is pronounced “toe-MAY-toe.”
Similarly, “pajamas” is pronounced “puh-JAW-muhz” (rhymes with “llamas”) in Britain, but can be pronounced either “puh-JAM-uhz” (rhymes with “panoramas”) or “puh-JAW-muhz” in America. And, in America, “dance” rhymes with “France,” while in Britain “dance” is often pronounced “dahns.”
I once wrote a poem for a publisher in India where I rhymed “face” with “vase.” (In America, these two words rhyme with one another.) My publisher was very confused because in India, as well as Britain and much of the world, “vase” is pronounced “vahz” (rhymes with “jaws”).
When I read poems by British authors, sometimes I am surprised by their rhyme choices. For example, I recently saw “speedier” rhymed with “media” because Brits often do not pronounce the r’s at the ends of words.
Dealing with different pronunciations
In general, it’s a good idea to think about who your readers might be. When you run into a word that your readers may pronounce differently than you, you may want to choose a different rhyme. For example, instead of saying:
I like to sing and dance.
You might say:
I like to dance and sing.
A syllable and a half
Another problem you might encounter has to do with the number of syllables in a word.
Many types of poems require counting syllables, or counting “feet,” which are groups of syllables. For example, haiku usually have five syllables on the first and last lines, and seven syllables on the second line. Sonnets normally have five feet of two syllables each, ten syllables total, on each line.
When I write poems, I not only think about the rhymes, but also the rhythm, or “meter” of the words. I usually count feet rather than syllables, but it still requires knowing how many syllables are in any given word.
For most words, the number of syllables is pretty easy to count. “Cat” is clearly a one-syllable word. “Mother” is easy to identify as two syllables. But not every word in English is pronounced the same way by everyone.
Depending on where you live, you may pronounce things a little differently than people in other places. Sometimes this can change the number of syllables you hear when you pronounce certain words.
For example, take the word “poem.” Depending on where you live, this might be pronounced “POE-uhm,” “poe-EHM,” or even “pome.” If you pronounce it “pome,” you might rhyme it with “home,” but this might sound wrong to people in other parts of the country or world. Regardless of how you pronounce it, because other people might pronounce it with a different number of syllables, which would make the rhythm different to them than it is to you.
When a word can be correctly pronounced with one syllable or two, I call these “one-and-a-half-syllable words.” Other examples include words such as “orange” (which some pronounce “OR-uhnj” while others say “ornj”) and “fire” (which many would argue is a one-syllable word, while others say it rhymes with “higher,” which is definitely two syllables.
Similarly, there are many “two-and-a-half-syllable words,” such as “family” (which can be correctly pronounced with either two syllables — “FAM-lee” –or three — “FAM-uh-lee”) and “chocolate” (“CHOK-lit” or “CHOK-uh-lit”).
Dealing with different syllable counts
When you discover that other people may pronounce a certain word differently than you, you can fix the problem in one of two ways.
Substitute a different word
One easy way to solve this issue is to avoid the word by substituting a different one, such as “mother” or “father” in place of “family.”
Change the placement of the word
Another way to fix the problem is by placing the word where it can be pronounced either way without affecting the rhythm.
For example, instead of saying:
My family is very nice.
You might say:
I really like my family.
This way, regardless of whether your readers pronounce “family” as two syllables or three, it doesn’t affect the rhythm of the line.
Whenever you encounter words that others might pronounce differently than you, it’s good to keep these words in mind when you are writing poems that require rhythm or syllable counting so that your poems can be read more easily by everyone, no matter where they are.
More than once, I have found myself writing a poem where I needed to rhyme letters of the alphabet, or numbers, or both. For example, my poems Swimming Ool, Alphabet Break, and The Man from Planet X all rhyme letters of the alphabet with one another. If you ever find yourself writing a poem where you are rhyming letters or numbers, this short list might be useful to you.
Sometimes when you’re writing a rhyming poem, you may want to include a word or phrase that rhymes with itself, such as itsy-bitsy or super-duper. Also called “close rhymes,” these are what are known as “reduplicated” words or phrases. “Reduplication” is the term for words or phrases that are created by repeating sounds. Here is a list of rhyming reduplicated words and phrases that may come in handy to you sometime.
abracadabra
argle-bargle
argy-bargy
artsy-fartsy
backpack
backtrack
bandstand
bed head
bees knees
big rig
bigwig
blackjack
blame game
blues clues
bolo
boo-hoo
boogie-woogie
boot scoot
bowwow
boy toy
brain drain
bucket truck
chick-flick
chilly willy
chip dip
chock-a-block
chop shop
chug-a-lug
chunky monkey
claptrap
clean green
cookbook
crop top
cuddly-wuddly
cutie patootie
deadhead
ding-a-ling
ditch witch
double bubble
double trouble
downtown
drop crop
drop-top
dry fly
easy cheese
easy-peasey
eency-weency
even-steven
fancy nancy
fancy-schmancy
fat cat
fender-bender
fiddle diddle
fight or flight
fit bit
flyby
fomo
fright night
fuddy-duddy
fun in the sun
fun run
fuzzy-wuzzy
go low
go pro
go slow
great state
green bean
ground round
handstand
handy-dandy
hanky-panky
harum-scarum
heart smart
heebie-jeebies
helter skelter
heyday
hi-fi
higgledy-piggledy
high and dry
high fly
hinky dinky
hippy-dippy
hobby lobby
hobnob
hobo
hocus-pocus
hoddy-noddy
hodgepodge
hoi polloi
hoity-toity
hokey-pokey
holy cannoli
holy moly
hong kong
hoodoo
hooley-dooley
hot pot
hotshot
hotspot
hotsy-totsy
hubbub
huffing and puffing
hugger-mugger
hulu
humdrum
humpty dumpty
hurdy-gurdy
hurly-burly
hurry-scurry
hustle and bustle
itsy-bitsy
itty-bitty
jeepers creepers
jelly belly
jet set
kowtow
laffy taffy
lardy-dardy
lean and mean
lite brite
loosey-goosey
lovey-dovey
low and slow
low blow
low-flow
mama
mai tai
maintain
make or break
mars bars
mayday
melee
mellow yellow
might makes right
mojo
mudblood
mukluk
mumbo-jumbo
namby-pamby
name game
naysay
neato burrito
night-light
night-night
nighty-night
nitty-gritty
nitwit
no-go
no-no
no-show
nutter butter
oingo boingo
okey dokey
one-ton
out and about
pall mall
papa
payday
pedal to the metal
pell-mell
phony-baloney
pickwick
picnic
pie in the sky
piggly wiggly
plain jane
polo
pooper scooper
pop-top
powwow
prime-time
pump and dump
quick pick
quiet riot
quite a sight
ragtag
rat-tat
rat-a-tat
razzle-dazzle
razzmatazz
reese’s pieces
righty tighty
ring ding
rinky-dink
roly-poly
rom-com
rootin’ tootin’
rough and tough
rough stuff
scat cat
shake and bake
shock jock
shoe goo
shout out
silly-willy
single mingle
sky high
slim jim
sloppy copy
slow-mo
snack pack
snail mail
snow blow
soho
solo
space case
space race
spruce goose
steak ‘n shake
steer clear
stop and shop
study buddy
stun gun
sump pump
super-duper
tee-hee
teen scene
teenie-weenie
teensy-weensy
tepee
tex-mex
thin skin
tighty-whitey
tinky winky
tohubohu
top crop
tramp stamp
true blue
turkey jerky
tutti frutti
TV
undone
voodoo
wall ball
walkie-talkie
waylay
wear and tear
white flight
white knight
wi-fi
willy-nilly
wing-ding
without a doubt
wonton
word nerd
yolo
Non-Rhyming Reduplicated Words and Phrases
Some reduplicated words and phrases don’t quite rhyme because they contain different vowel sounds, such as ping-pong or zigzag. Technically, these are known as “ablaut reduplications.” Here is a list of reduplicated words and phrases that don’t rhyme.
Tongue twisters are one of the most fun forms of wordplay for kids. The more challenging they are to speak, the more fun they can be. Most tongue twisters take one of three forms:
Phrases that are hard to repeat several times in a row, such as “toy boat” or “unique New York.”
Phrases or sentences that are hard to say, such as “she sells sea shells by the seashore” or “rubber baby buggy bumpers.”
If you are writing a poem, especially a list poem, that includes games or sports, you may find it useful to have a list of names of sports and games that rhyme. Here are a few that I have collected. These include sports, board games, card games, party games, and video games.
baton twirling / curling / hurling
bench press / chess
biking / hiking
blackjack / hacky sack / track / You Don’t Know Jack
Blockade / Old Maid
Candyland / marching band
canoeing / crewing / snowshoeing
capture the flag / tag
cheering / mountaineering / orienteering
Civilization / Operation / recreation
Clue / Taboo
dancing / lancing
decathlon / marathon / pentathlon / Pokémon / Settlers of Catan / triathlon
diving / driving
Donkey Kong / mahjong
gliding / riding / sliding
Go / hammer throw / javelin throw / kenpo / Pokémon Go / taekwondo
