Monorhyme

Monorhyme is a passage, stanza, or entire poem in which all lines have the same end rhyme.^[1] The term "monorhyme" describes the use of one (mono) type of repetitious sound (rhyme). This is common in Arabic, Latin and Welsh works,^[2] such as The Book of One Thousand and One Nights,^{[citation needed]} e.g. qasida and its derivative kafi.

Some styles of monorhyme uses the middle of a poem's line to utilize this poetic tool. The Persian ghazal poetry style places the monorhyme before the refrain in a line.^{[citation needed]} This is seen in the poem "Even the Rain" by Agha Shahid Ali:

"What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?

But he has bought grief's lottery, bought even the rain."

The monorhyme knot is introduced before the line’s refrain or pause. The corresponding rhyme bought is used in the next line. Although these are not the last words of the lines in the poem, monorhyme is incorporated in identical rhyme schemes in each line.

Example[]

An example of monorhyme is the poem "A Monorhyme for the Shower" by Dick Davis. This monorhyme has all the ending lines rhyming with the word "hair".

A Monorhyme for the Shower

Lifting her arms to soap her hair

Her pretty breasts respond – and there

The movement of that buoyant pair

Is like a spell to make me swear

Twenty odd years have turned to air;

Now she’s the girl I didn’t dare

Approach, ask out, much less declare

My love to, mired in young despair.

Childbearing, rows, domestic care

All the prosaic wear and tear

That constitute the life we share

Slip from her beautiful and bare

Bright body as, made half aware

Of my quick, surreptitious stare,

She wrings the water from her hair

And turning smiles to see me there.^[3]

There is also a monorhyme sung and cited by Willy Wonka in the 1973 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory during the dark tunnel scene with all words rhyming with "owing".

See also[]

• Perfect and imperfect rhymes

Sources[]

• Cushman, Stephen; Clare Cavanagh; Jahan Ramazani, Paul Rouzer (2012). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: (4th ed.). Princeton University Press. pp. 898–899. ISBN 1-4008-4142-9.

External links[]

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