hip-hop as poetry

Heart, We Will Forget HimBy: Emily Dickinson

Heart, we will forget him!

You and I, tonight!

You may forget the warmth she gave,

I will forget the light!

What is

the rhyme

scheme?

The rhyme scheme is ABCB.

The ryhmes are tonight and light(they share the same vowel and consonant at the end of the word).

PERFECT RHYME (or true rhyme)A rhyme in which two or more words begin with different consonant sounds, then have identical stressed vowel sounds. Any other following sounds are identical.

Perfect rhymes do not have to be spelled the same way

Perfect rhymes do not have to be spelled the same way

Examples:rink, winkgratitude, latitude

What rhymes perfectly with the word “wonder”?

blunderplundersunderthunder under

Saunter, daughter, computerare not perfect rhymes for theydon’t have matching voweland consonant sounds after the initial “w”.

The Difference Between Despair

By: Emily DickinsonThe Mind is Smooth – no Motion

Contented as the EyeUpon the Forehead of a Bust – That knows – it cannot see.

What is the

rhyme scheme?

The rhyme scheme

is A-B-C-slanted B

The Difference Between DespairThe Mind is Smooth – no Motion

(A)Contented as the Eye (B)Upon the Forehead of a Bust – (C)That knows – it cannot see.

(slanted B)

SLANT RHYME(partial rhyme, off rhyme, half rhyme, near rhyme)

A partial or imperfect rhyme which often uses assonance or consonance only.

Slant rhymes do not have to be spelled in different ways.

how, rowlovely/ funny

Slant Rhyme

perfect rhyme

BROWN clown, crown, down, drown frown, gown, noun, town…

done, brawn, bone, ruin, bummed, broad, crowed…

INSTANT fixing, old land, mixed drink, king’s men, hand stand, minced meat, Jim said…

TOPIC tropic, myopic, microscopic…

knocked, real hick, mock pit, hoped, rotten, some think…

If the world of Western Poetics resisted slant rhyme, the world of Hip-hop embraced it. The difference, probably, is that Western Poetry (though an Oral tradition by origin) had become a written tradition.

The reader of a poem may not understand that “eye” if pronounced in a certain way, can rhyme very closely with “see.”

Hip-hop as an oral tradition never had to worry about how a “reader” might pronounce a word, it is always up to the emcee.

Memories Live By: Talib Kweli

Yo it kind of make me think of way back when,

I was a portrait of the artist as a young man,

All those teenage dreams of rappin’

Writin’ rhymes on napkins,

Was really visualization, making this here actually happen

The rhyme scheme is

A- slanted A - B- slanted B- slanted B

NY State of MindBy: Nas

I got so many rhymes I don’t think I’m too sane Life is parallel to Hell but I must maintain,And be prosperous, though we live dangerous,Cops could just arrest me, blaming us, we’re held like hostages

Can we pretend that airplanes In the night sky are like shooting stars?I could use a wish right nowWish right now, wish right now

AIRPLANES By B.O.B.

“For me, such rhymes as, say, ‘swans/ stones’ or ‘gibe/club’ or ‘south/both’ often sound more beautiful and interesting than such hard-rhyme combinations as ‘bones/stones,’ or ‘rub/club’ or south/mouth’”

-Robert Pinsky(in his introduction to Dante’s Inferno)

Compose a poem on how you can encourage people to use the English language. There should be instances of perfect rhyme and slant rhyme. Interpret it through a music video.

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