Assonance is the repetition of the vowel sound across words within the lines of the poem creating internal rhymes.
Examples of assonance across words include: crying time; hop-scotch; great flakes; between trees; and, the kind knight rides by.
Look at this stanza from John Agard’s poem ‘Hopaloo Kangaroo’:
If you can boogaloo
boogaloo
I can do
the boogaloo too
for I’m the boogiest
hopaloo kangaroo
from The Puffin Book of Fantastic First Poems (Puffin, 2000)
There are examples of the repeated /oo/ sound within the 1st, 4th and 6th lines (assonance), as well as it being used as a rhyme at the end of all the lines, except the 5th line
By Sa’ad Nazeer
When I’ll be old,
And you’ll be old
We’ll tell each other the stories!
What charm is there
In telling a shared story!
What misery, having no story to tell,
That has never been heard before!
Oh, the same stories
Over and over again!
We’ll die in desperation trying to recall
The one that we’d think
Would light up the wrinkled face!
A new one!
What loss!
By Amna Ameer
I put out my hand
I can feel the soft blossom
Breathe in my palms
It touches my blood
And beats with my heart
How did it know?
It was time,
To let spring in
Even though it wasn’t meant
For me
I had to feel its touch
Through a surrogate home
I no longer live in
I only carry it
As a shadow
Like the aftertaste
Of coffee clinging to your taste buds
Like the conversation
You kept pressed in between roses
Unknowing of when they will wilt
And turn to ashes
From dust shall rise
The dancing twilights
Of sunsets
Buried in the yesteryears
Of oblivious youth
I felt the warmth
Of unadulterated shelter
Created in broken arms
Held together only for me
I travelled for miles
Every night
Only because
I no longer wanted to wake up
Here.
Compiled by SK