Poem about Enzymes

[The Mad Monk]

Elok, whatever you do, don't read the libretto for Nixon In China -- your head will explode.

[Al B. Sure!]

Published poet? Published poet? Ever since Longfellow, poets have been lazy! With this freeverse nonsense!

EXPLAIN TO ME how a pair of syllables sharing the same vowel and consonant sounds somehow isn't a ****ing rhyme?! ESPECIALLY in the context of them sharing the exact same syllable on the following syllable!

[Al B. Sure!]

And verse and first also rhyme!

Let's look at the IPA for those words, shall we?

Verse:
vɜrs

First:
fɜrst

Well what do you know? ɜrs!

Hey and guess what, the consonant sounds for f and v are quite similar, sometimes even indistinguishable in everyday speech.

Looks like the only difference in sound is that verse doesn't end in the t sound that first does. Well, that difference is a good thing. Otherwise, it would sound like you're just repeating the same word!

[Elok]

Explain to me how my armchair isn't a bear? They're both big, brown and pudgy!

Free verse has its own "rules," so to speak. Plath's "Lady Lazarus" contains very little rhyme, but you'd never mistake it for prose. In truth, though, there aren't any absolute rules in writing. There are various guidelines, any of which can be disobeyed with impunity by anyone who knows what he's doing. Some are more easily and safely broken than others. All that matters is the end result: it looks/sounds beautiful, haunting, melodious or at least pleasant. By that measure, this fails spectacularly. You have created the written equivalent of a deformed rhino attempting to copulate with an Edsel. It's like you set out trying to make something painful to the eyes.

[Al B. Sure!]

Construction:
kənˈstrʌkʃən

Function:
ˈfʌŋkʃən

Well what do you know? ʌkʃən and ʌŋkʃən are pretty damn similar. In fact, the only difference is function has that 'n' sound to differentiate them but the vowels and consonant sounds are otherwise identical!

[Al B. Sure!]

Explain to me how my armchair isn't a bear? They're both big, brown and pudgy!

Free verse has its own "rules," so to speak. Plath's "Lady Lazarus" contains very little rhyme, but you'd never mistake it for prose. In truth, though, there aren't any absolute rules in writing. There are various guidelines, any of which can be disobeyed with impunity by anyone who knows what he's doing. Some are more easily and safely broken than others. All that matters is the end result: it looks/sounds beautiful, haunting, melodious or at least pleasant. By that measure, this fails spectacularly. You have created the written equivalent of a deformed rhino attempting to copulate with an Edsel.

This isn't about this piece of ****ing **** high school poem about biology!

It's trash. We all know that ****ing ****. It's just funny because schools make you do **** like this. That's why I posted it. It was not posted to make a statement that it's good. It was posted because it's funny in the absurdity of the assignment. Maybe you can't comprehend the motivation for posting it but the two laughing smilies and me referring to it as nonsense kind of gives a normal person the hint.

Now that you want to criticize the use of imperfect rhymes (not in this piece of **** but in general!), I am ****ing SONNING your snobby ass.

[Elok]

Looks like the only difference in sound is that verse doesn't end in the t sound that first does. Well, that difference is a good thing. Otherwise, it would sound like you're just repeating the same word!

They're also the reason why that's not a rhyme. "Reverse" rhymes with "rehearse," "worse," "hearse," what-have-you. I will grant you "construction/function" as feminine rhyme, although, again, that kind of feminine rhyme trying to be masculine is lame and unpleasant. But if they don't even end with the same sound, they are not rhymes at all. They're fine examples of assonance and consonance, I'm sure, but those aren't rhymes. They're alliteration. And they make it sound like you're trying to rhyme, possibly while hammered, and failing.

[Al B. Sure!]

And it's ****ing hilarious how you talk about meter and rhythm when you DESPISE the fact that rap is necessarily reliant on meter and rhythm (it's over a ****ing beat! Rappers literally HAVE TO use meter and rhythm or they'll be off the strict metronome of a beat!)... calling it herky-jerky. What sense does that ****ing make?

You're full of ****, Elok.

[Elok]

This isn't about this piece of ****ing **** high school poem about biology!

It is as far as I'm concerned. That kind of ugliness isn't funny, it's written tubgirl to anyone with any sense of rhythm, rhyme, meter or good taste. I don't care about your insistence that abortive half-rhymes are "valid," whatever that's supposed to mean.

[Al B. Sure!]

They're also the reason why that's not a rhyme. "Reverse" rhymes with "rehearse," "worse," "hearse," what-have-you. I will grant you "construction/function" as feminine rhyme, although, again, that kind of feminine rhyme trying to be masculine is lame and unpleasant. But if they don't even end with the same sound, they are not rhymes at all. They're fine examples of assonance and consonance, I'm sure, but those aren't rhymes. They're alliteration. And they make it sound like you're trying to rhyme, possibly while hammered, and failing.

I don't think you know what feminine rhyme means, fool. It's not what you think it does.

A feminine rhyme is when the stress is on the penultimate syllable (like treasure/pleasure).


Lot of good your English degree and all your pompousness and fake knowledge does you. You can't even get your terminology straight.

[Elok]

And it's ****ing hilarious how you talk about meter and rhythm when you DESPISE the fact that rap is necessarily reliant on meter and rhythm (it's over a ****ing beat! Rappers literally HAVE TO use meter and rhythm or they'll be off the strict metronome of a beat!)... calling it herky-jerky. What sense does that ****ing make?

You're full of ****, Elok.

Rappers freely violate meter and rhythm, at least in the poetic sense. Look where you put those commas--they're breaking up the flow of the work, making you stutter in weird places as you read it so you sound like you're doing a half-assed Porky Pig impersonation. Likewise the meter; the lines vary in length, again apparently at random. Rappers do the same things, easily, without having to worry about breaking from the very simple, monotonous background beats they use.

[Elok]

Okay, you're right about feminine rhyme. I don't do poetry much. The poem's still fugly.

EDIT: Wait, I wasn't off by much. I mixed up the two. Masculine is one syllable, feminine is two. That feminine rhyme is stressed on the second-to-last syllable is a relatively minor detail.

[Al B. Sure!]

I write something like this as part of a verse... I've annotated all the rhyming sets. Yet I guess not a single one of these is a proper rhyme in Elok's bizarro world despite shared syllable sounds.

She's got my heart aching¹ with her smiles² and sunshine³
Time⁴ wasting¹, mind⁴ racing¹ while² my tongue's tied³
They say love lies³,
But it's me that I'm being dishonest with⁵
trying to be all calm with it⁵,
portray the proper ambience⁶
Cause women want a man with self-confidence⁶
But every time I try to be smooth,
I get lost in self-consciousness⁶,
Making promises⁶ with myself⁷,
I insist I got to get some help⁷...


And a valid pronunciation of ambience is with the soft a as in father. look it up.

[Al B. Sure!]

Rappers freely violate meter and rhythm, at least in the poetic sense. Look where you put those commas--they're breaking up the flow of the work, making you stutter in weird places as you read it so you sound like you're doing a half-assed Porky Pig impersonation. Likewise the meter; the lines vary in length, again apparently at random. Rappers do the same things, easily, without having to worry about breaking from the very simple, monotonous background beats they use.

THAT **** IS NOT RAP!!!!! Holy **** it's a ****ing school poem assignment. WOW

GET IT THROUGH YOUR ****ING HEAD THAT **** IS GARBAGE.

[Elok]

So we don't disagree about the poem. If you want to call alliteration rhyme, well, have fun with that. I mixed up masculine and feminine, after all. All I'm saying is that it's impossible for me to find that horrible POS funny. It's terrible in so many ways that it seems you were actively trying to make it bad. And it's bad in many of the same ways rap is bad.