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POETS’ CORNER

By S. K
Fri, 04, 20

Examples of assonance across words include: crying time; hop-scotch; great flakes; between trees; and, the kind knight rides by.....

Rhyme ‘n’ Reason

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

When I’ll be old

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!

Here

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