Chapter 1. Rhyme

Of course, Russian versification also includes poems without rhyme. Moreover, there are quite a few varieties of unrhymed poetry.

The first variety is blank verse—poetry without rhyme. In blank verse, meter must always be present. Classical examples of blank verse, in my opinion, are the works of Aleksey Koltsov:

Examples of blank verse can also be found in the works of other classical poets, for example:

"The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is written in blank verse as well. Technically, blank verse is quite simple: one merely needs to maintain the meter and preserve the meaning. Because of this technical simplicity, blank verse must contain something powerful enough to “outshine” the absence of rhyme. In Koltsov’s case, that element is his masterful stylization of folk poetry. Incidentally, "The Song of Hiawatha" is also a stylization of epic tradition—or rather, it is an epic itself.

In contemporary poetry, blank verse is not especially common (pay no attention to the absence of punctuation marks; Yanka Dyagileva wrote this way in the original, and in poetry this is entirely acceptable):

The distant ancestor of blank verse was the so-called unrhymed verse, which includes all ancient poetry as well as later European poetry from the period before the tradition of rhymed verse had fully developed. An example of unrhymed verse:

Blank verse, unlike unrhymed verse, is a conscious departure from established poetic rules and traditions, an intentional rejection of rhyme as a particular artistic device. It should also be noted that meter is still preserved in unrhymed verse.

The culmination of unrhymed poetry is free verse. Free verse possesses neither rhyme nor fixed meter. Essentially, it is prose divided into lines. Free verse emerged much earlier than many other poetic forms and developed alongside them. It reached particularly great heights in American poetry. Let me provide several examples of classical free verse in Russian translation.

This is the opening chapter of the famous "Song of Myself," which in many ways laid the foundation for modern free verse.

Here is another example:

There is only one thing I can say about free verse: to write truly good free verse, one must be a genuine genius. Beautiful rhymes and stylistic consistency can conceal almost any weakness of meaning, but when all technical means of poetic embellishment are absent, it becomes extremely difficult to maintain the precise meaning and logic of what the reader is supposed to perceive in the poem. That is why writing good free verse is very difficult. Most often, when you write free verse, it speaks not of your high artistic level, but simply of your inability to work with rhyme.

Closely related to free verse are the so-called prose poems—short, emotionally насыщенные lyrical works written in prose form without the features of meter or rhyme. Their distinguishing characteristics are melodiousness and lyricism.

Во дни сомнений, во дни тягостных раздумий о судьбах моей родины, ты один мне поддержка и опора, о великий, могучий, правдивый и свободный русский язык! Не будь тебя — как не впасть в отчаянье при виде всего, что свершается дома? Но нельзя верить, чтобы такой язык не был дан великому народу!

(Ivan Turgenev)

It should be noted that attitudes toward prose poetry have changed noticeably in the twenty-first century. Many literary scholars no longer classify such works as poetry at all. In general, I agree with this point of view. It is, rather, lyrical and beautiful prose.

Other types of unrhymed poetry include haiku, tanka, and several others. To be honest, the highly specific nature of Japanese poetry is neither well suited nor truly intended for translation into Russian and subsequent interpretation. First, these poems usually reflect a philosophy that is largely alien; second, translation erases the distinctions between forms, even though such distinctions clearly exist in the original language. From my point of view, writing haiku or tanka in Russian is simply absurd—roughly equivalent to a Japanese poet writing rhymed quatrains in Japanese about birch trees. The unique nature of Japanese poetry is determined by the language itself, which lacks long and short syllables, stressed and unstressed syllables, and therefore lacks metrical feet.

Haiku is a genre of Japanese poetry: an unrhymed tercet derived from the tanka form and consisting of seventeen syllables (5+7+5). It emerged in the sixteenth century during the extraordinary flourishing of Zen Buddhism, which at the time enjoyed official state status. True haiku could only be written by a trained master who had undergone a long process of refinement and literary discipline. Knowledge of haiku and the ability to compose them eventually became an essential part of the education of the Japanese samurai warrior, who was expected to possess composure of spirit, detachment, and the ability to admire the beauty of the transient world. The great classical masters of Japanese poetry who created unsurpassed examples of haiku were Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) and Hattori Ransetsu (1654–1707).

Tanka is another genre of Japanese poetry. It is an unrhymed five-line poem consisting of thirty-one syllables (5+7+5+7+7). It is distinguished by poetic elegance and brevity.

Among the lesser-known forms of Japanese versification are katauta (pattern 5+5+7), sedoka (a doubled katauta: 5+5+7 || 5+5+7, with a caesura between the two katauta sections), bussokuseki-ka (a form derived from haiku: 5+7+5+7+7+7), hanka (a poem written without strict adherence to syllabic stanzaic rules, but ending with a tanka stanza... 5+7+5+7+7), and nagauta (a poem built on alternating five- and seven-syllable lines in pairs, ending with a katauta stanza: 5+7+5+7+5+7... 5+7+7). Standing somewhat apart is the irregular (“endless”) form imayouta: 7+5+7+5 || 7+5+7+5 || ... with a major caesura after every fourth line. This form contradicts the general law of Japanese stanzaic structure, which requires the number 5 to come first. The form took root under Chinese influence. As an example, let us consider a katauta:

Free verse, tanka, hokku, and similar forms possess neither fixed syllabic meter nor traditional metrical structure; they are poetic forms of purely foreign origin. Blank verse, however, has genuinely Russian roots: this is the form in which “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” has been rendered from Old Russian into the modern language. In the original, it was written as continuous text, without paragraphs or spaces between words; only several illuminated initials divided the parts of the poem. Yet it could still be read rather easily by placing the stresses correctly and distinguishing the lines intuitively. Among classical examples of blank verse, one might also mention "The Song of the Stormy Petrel" by Maxim Gorky.

In principle, one could find at least a dozen more varieties of poetic forms unconcerned with rhyme (Ancient Roman poetry, for example), but I will not discuss them here, because the purpose of this treatise is specifically to teach Russian versification. In the overwhelming majority of cases, rhyme is necessary!

That said, unrhymed elements can sometimes be used. For example:

This is a humorous poem about the incompetence of certain poets. In a comic context and on an appropriate subject, the absence of rhyme is not only acceptable, but even amusing and necessary.

The absence of rhyme is also permissible in certain songs, when the melody is structured in such a way that it “conceals” the irregularity of the poetic line. For example,

The song is very funny, and its characteristic melody allows the author to dispense with both rhyme and meter (although there are hints of both). This technique—a combination of rhymed and unrhymed lines—is called mixed verse.

Dmitry Bykov has a wonderful poem entitled “And Then American Poetry...,” written almost entirely without rhyme in the traditional style of American poetry. But toward the end of the poem, Bykov shifts to speaking about Russian poetry—and suddenly rhyme appears. In this way, he playfully develops the central idea of the piece. A masterful touch, one must admit.

A very peculiar variety of rhyme that nevertheless cannot be considered fully developed was introduced into poetic practice in the 1920s by Ivan Rukavishnikov. These are the so-called half-rhymes. Half-rhymes are based on the consonance of line endings, but they do not constitute true rhyme because they do not obey the general rules of rhyming, do not preserve the required number of rhyming syllables, and are marked by an intentionally careless quality. Examples of half-rhyme include the following lines:

So then! Ideally, unless you are attempting to solve some specific artistic problem, rhyme should either be present throughout the entire poem or absent altogether. Unrhymed poetry does not demonstrate your poetic gift. More often than not, it demonstrates your poetic inadequacy. Writing strong and talented poetry without rhyme is far more difficult than writing it with rhyme. I have read or heard at least three hundred young poets writing in this manner, and I have heard nothing worthwhile among them. Nevertheless, it is indeed possible to write good free verse, strange as that may seem, though it is by no means easy. The article “Free Verse as a Mirror of the Non-Russian Revolution” explains in detail what good free verse ought to be. I think that everyone who considers rhyme beneath them would do well to read it and reflect carefully on what exactly they are writing.

In this chapter, I will discuss the general principles behind creating beautiful and effective rhyme. These are purely technical rules that belong specifically to the theory of versification as a scholarly discipline; we shall abstract ourselves from the poem’s content and its supposedly lofty spiritual qualities (as many poets like to describe their own works). I will also attempt to describe several varieties of rhyme, which means that we cannot avoid a certain amount of terminology.

First and foremost, I always encourage poets to strive for so-called authorial rhymes—individual discoveries never previously used by anyone else. These are original compound rhymes employing unusual combinations of words or fragments of words. As a rule, such a rhyme is unique in its kind: исповедь–избы ведь, большевиков–больше веков, жизнь с кого–Дзержинского, наново я–банановая, Цезаря–лице заря, Киева–старики его–распни его, лёд щеки–лётчики, та ли я–талия, почему ж бы–службы, бьют об двери лбы–не поверил бы.

The search for such rhyme often leads to the necessity of improving one’s technical skill.

Let me immediately introduce several terms. If the stress falls on the final syllable of the line, the rhyme is called masculine; if on the penultimate syllable, feminine; if on the third syllable from the end, dactylic; and if on the fourth or fifth syllable from the end, hyperdactylic. Sometimes the term superhyperdactylic is also used: this refers to stress falling on the sixth syllable from the end or even farther back. However, this is a highly specific case that is almost never encountered in poetic practice. For example: выкристаллизовавшиеся–выбаллотировавшиеся.

Authorial rhyme, like many other varieties of successful rhyme, belongs to the group of so-called acoustic rhymes—rhymes composed of words whose rhythmic endings differ in spelling but coincide in pronunciation: грешно–конечно, красавица–кудрявиться, ящик–оснастчик, рыться–злится, существо–ничего, снова–младого. Most rhymes in the Russian language, from exact to approximate, belong to the category of acoustic rhyme. Acoustic rhymes are divided into objective and subjective ones. Objective acoustic rhymes strictly obey the laws of pronunciation and are perceived identically by everyone: мышь–рыж, слуг–стук, сыр–пир, вот–комод, поп–лоб, локти–когти, рад–ряд, нас–раз.

Subjective acoustic rhymes are consonances of words based purely on individual perception. Such rhymes may sound harmonious to some readers and entirely unacceptable to others. Examples include: ступа–рупор, ваши–фальши, они–раним, сласти–счастье, длинный–дивный. Objective acoustic rhymes generally belong to the category of exact rhyme, while subjective ones are usually approximate.

The vowels and consonants within a rhyme should correspond to one another (that is, form phonetic pairs). In other words, the similarity of the endings themselves is not especially important. Far more important are the sounds present in the syllable preceding the ending. For example, the rhyme золотой–дорогой is poor not only because it rhymes identical parts of speech in the same grammatical form, but also because of the phonetic mismatch between the consonants “т” and “г.” The stressed syllable (here, “той” and “гой”) should rhyme as precisely as possible.

The stressed syllables (ста(н)” in the first and third lines, “му” in the second and fourth) coincide perfectly. What comes after the stressed syllable (“но” and “ми”) does not rhyme at all, but that is not important. Thus, the most important thing is to rhyme the stressed syllable; what follows it requires rhyme to a much lesser degree. One variety of such rhyme is, for example, root rhyme—when the stressed and therefore rhyming element is the root of the word.

The most skillful—and most beautiful—variety of such rhyme is pretonic rhyme. This is the most harmonious form of assonant rhyme: a rhyme based on the coincidence of the stressed vowel together with the sounds or syllables preceding it. The greater the phonetic similarity, the more harmonious the rhyme becomes. Pretonic rhyme is the only type of rhyme in which the clausulae of the words may play no rhyme-forming role at all. Сударыни–судачите, полегче–полезный, пролетарий–пролетали, коробится–коровушка, присяга–присяду, возни–возьми, голову–голому.

Nevertheless, one should not reject deep rhymes either—rhymes between words in which not only the endings coincide, but entire pretonic syllables as well. Вода–провода, полей–тополей, бывать–забывать, пора–топора. A deep rhyme may be regarded as a rhyme between words whose pretonic parts possess substantial phonetic similarity and can compensate for the insufficient consonance of the post-tonic parts of the words.

There is, however, one point that must be taken into account. A sibilant occurring at the end of a word, even after the stressed syllable, demands another sibilant in the corresponding rhyme. A hissing consonant requires another hissing consonant in return. Why are sibilants so demanding? Because during recitation we very often swallow the post-tonic syllables (and sometimes even the pretonic ones). But sibilants sound sharp, cannot easily be swallowed, and stand out clearly even outside the stressed syllable. Therefore, they require particularly careful treatment. For example:

Here, in lines 1–3, the rhyme is simply brilliant: a gerund rhymed against a noun, yet the two resemble one another like twin brothers. And although the stressed syllable is “ру,” the consonant “ж” is emphasized very noticeably. In lines 2–4, the opposite situation occurs. The rhyme is fairly good overall (and extraordinarily effective in terms of meaning), but it is somewhat weakened by the poor compatibility between the sounds “л” and “ж.” Still, in the poetry of Nikolay Gumilev, magnificent technical rhymes are often intertwined with weaker but semantically richer ones.

The most difficult meter for this kind of rhyming is the dactyl, because after the final stressed syllable there remain two entire unstressed syllables that must also sound harmonious. Examples:

Here, in lines 1–3, we have a four-foot dactyl with one syllable omitted, and the rhyme is not especially strong from a technical standpoint, though it is quite beautiful. The rhyming element is “пер–тер.” Here is a better example:

Every stanza here contains an ideal rhyme for this kind of meter, where not merely fragments but almost entire words rhyme with one another.

One more point. Vowels are subject to even stricter requirements than consonants. Ideally, they should be identical rather than merely similar in sound (that is, “а–я” is not a very good option). And under no circumstances should one line contain a hard sound while the rhyming line contains a soft one. Soft sounds should rhyme with soft sounds, hard with hard.

Here, the soft “ть’” annihilates the destructive effect of the mismatched vowels “ю” and “е.” And notice this: the words “ночью” and “приборчик” do not form an exact rhyme, but because of the presence of the sibilant consonant they are so strongly consonant that such a rhyme is not merely acceptable, but actually quite effective. I strongly recommend making use of this property of sibilants, hissing sounds, and the soft sign itself (that is, directing attention toward them rather than toward the inexactness of the other elements of the rhyme).

In addition, let me note the following. Try to use primarily inexact rhymes rather than exact ones (паук–звук). The most beautiful and pleasing variety of inexact rhyme is the superstructural (truncated, extended) rhyme (рассказ–тоска), in which, after the precisely rhyming syllable, one half of the rhyme contains nothing further (ending in a vowel), while the other contains additional consonants (one or two, rarely three). Iotated rhyme is the most common variety of truncated rhyme; it is an equal-syllable rhyme between words with open and closed syllables, where the latter ends in “й” (iot). Поле–волей, этой–лето, бури–фурий, почила–могилой, оковы–новый, думы–угрюмый, волны–полный, нашей–чаше.

Unequal-syllable rhymes also look beautiful (as in Vladimir Mayakovsky: врезываясь–трезвость), and of course assonant rhymes as well. These are precisely the kind I mentioned earlier, where the stressed syllable rhymes clearly, while everything that follows it is merely consonant rather than an exact rhyme.

In this example, there is a wonderful truncated rhyme in lines 2–4 and simply magnificent consonance in lines 1–3. Such consonance is called friendly rhyme. This is the sort of effect one should strive for.

Among the excellent varieties of rhyme, I would also include the following types, all of which I strongly recommend using.

Insertion rhyme—a rhyming combination in which a consonant is inserted into the clausula of one of the words, most often immediately after the stressed vowel; the opposite of elision rhyme: медь–сельдь, брег–поверг, год–лорд, литры–фильтры, вас–вальс, клетка–студентка, радугой–играть дугой.

Elision rhyme—the opposite of insertion rhyme: зонтика–экзотика, горе–двое, отвёртка–уборка, пусть–путь.

Alternating (permutational) rhyme—a rhyme in which consonant sounds or even parts of words are rearranged, creating the illusion of phonetic similarity. Ксерокс–вереск, рифма–нимфа, юрта–утро, алиби–грабили, карла–крала, прут–труп, схема–смеха, пёстрый–разношёрстый, прискорбно–подробно. The only thing I should note is that this type is best used in the rhymes of the first and third lines of a quatrain—that is, not in the rhymes carrying the primary structural weight of the poem—because they are rather approximate in nature.

A considerable number of Russian words possess a tendency toward dual rhyme: this allows them to rhyme with different words that do not rhyme with one another at all. Dual rhyme is a variety of superstructural (truncated) rhyme. Its characteristic feature is the presence of two final consonants in one of the words, giving that word the potential to rhyme in two different ways (in addition to the primary form, where the clausulae coincide completely).

1. Табор–рапорт. In this rhyme, the “т” may effectively disappear.

2. Запад–рапорт. In this rhyme, the “р” drops out.

Верес–ксерокс, скатерть–богоматерь, крест–реестр, мылить–милость, смелость–пелось.

Another interesting and effective variety of rhyme is the absolute rhyme—a rhyme composed of words identical in sound except for the stressed vowel (hard in one word and soft in the other): слог–слёг, завяленный–заваленный, оброк–обрёк, мыло–мило, блуза–блюза, томный–тёмный, забыть–забить, ложа–лёжа, метр–мэтр, грозы–грёзы, минёр–минор, потомки–потёмки, простыл–простил, томен–тёмен, слыть–слить, выселится–виселица, клон–клён.

The mere presence of rhyme does not mean that the rhyme is good or that it embellishes the poem. Unfortunately, bad rhymes are extremely common in the works of contemporary poets. At various festivals, the confidence some poets display in the brilliance of their poems often reaches absurd proportions, while the rhymes themselves are primitive in the extreme. I divide bad rhymes, conditionally, into several categories.

Consonances, or incorrect rhymes. For example, here is a line from the Russian-language pop song “I’m Already Eighteen” by "Ruki Vverh!": “…и целуй меня везде, восемнадцать мне уже…” The pairs везде–уже and тебя–меня are not merely poor or incorrect rhymes—they are consonances. These words have something vaguely in common; they sound somewhat alike, but this does not make them rhymes. One simply cannot rhyme this way, because the words do not actually rhyme. Besides the already mentioned везде–уже and тебя–меня, one may also note such pairs as балконе–голубое, дорога–книга, and so forth. Such mistakes are found primarily in the poems of very young poets or untalented ones lacking any true sense of rhyme.

Cognate rhymes. Rhyming cognate words is categorically discouraged. It is dreadful primitivism: essentially, “I could not find a suitable word, so I rhymed it with a related one.” This says only that the poet possesses an underdeveloped vocabulary and is incapable of replacing a word with a synonym. A canonical example of such a “rhyme” would be Konstantin Kinchev’s столетий–тысячелетий. One also frequently encounters things like ботинки–полуботинки, while the bard Vyacheslav Kovalyov once mocked such rhymes by deliberately pairing площадь–жилплощадь in one of his songs (this is not entirely cognate, but rather a semi-tautological rhyme). In essence, these are the same words, merely in slightly altered forms. The very worst type of cognate rhyme is the пришёл–подошёл or зарубил–порубил. Such rhymes are primitive for two reasons at once. The second reason will be discussed later.

This subtype also includes epiphora, or tautological rhymes—when a word rhymes with itself. Many great poets have used this device in their work, but consciously, rather than because they were incapable of finding an alternative.

Semi-tautological rhymes include the aforementioned ботинки–полуботинки, as well as люби–возлюби, нас–вас, and similar constructions.

At this point, I should make one digression. There exists a type of rhyme known as homonymic rhyme (or radif). It is not cognate and belongs to the category of good rhymes. The point is that homonyms, despite being written identically, are neither cognate nor identical words. For example:

Moreover, “напасть-1” and “напасть-2” here are actually different parts of speech altogether.

Poor rhymes are insufficient rhymes in which only the stressed vowels are consonant, for example: звезда–волна, вино–легко, пою–люблю, заря–звеня, доля–море, and so forth. In practice, this is essentially the same thing as assonance.

Rhymes composed of identical parts of speech in identical grammatical forms are also considered poor, especially when the rhyming vocabulary of such words is extremely large. Because of their simplicity, such rhymes are effortless to construct. Poor rhymes include verbal rhymes such as those ending in “-ать’”: летать–стонать–читать–знать–играть–писать–держать; adjective rhymes ending in “-ой”: большой–простой–сухой–немой–степной–озорной; and noun rhymes ending in “-ание”: гадание–желание–знание–венчание–сверкание–сияние–щебетание. The most common variety of poor rhyme is the parallel rhyme, in which identical parts of speech in identical forms are rhymed with one another (verbal rhymes belong to this category as well). Tautological and semi-tautological rhymes are considered especially poor.

Homogeneous rhymes are a subtype of poor rhyme. Such rhymes occur almost exclusively in verbal rhymes. In general, truly good verbal rhymes are exceedingly rare. Most often one gets something like передал–забодал or проскочил–обличил. Or infinitives such as хотеть–свистеть. The roots may be different, but the identical grammatical form still produces the same primitive effect. Rhyming in this way is permissible, but simply undesirable: it adds no beauty to the poem. The same applies to adjective-to-adjective rhymes (for example, смешной–смурной).

Graphic rhymes are rhymes between words whose endings coincide in spelling but not in pronunciation. Since they create no auditory harmony, graphic rhyme is only conditionally a rhyme at all (“rhyme for the eye”) and is almost never used nowadays. Examples include: большого–немного (ово–ого), утес–лес (ёс –ес), срочно–нарочно (очно–ошно), вечно–конечно (ечно–ешно), смелый–веселый (елый–ёлый).

Banality-worn rhymes. Sometimes the roots are different, the grammatical forms are different, and the rhyme is technically sound—yet it still sounds bad. Strange! The reason is that such rhymes, because of their obviousness, have already been used hundreds of times and have therefore become completely worn out: вновь–любовь–кровь is the canonical example. Other cases include ночь–дочь–прочь, тебя–любя, трудный–чудный, радость–младость, вечер–встреча–свечи, слёзы–морозы–грёзы–розы, борьба–судьба, век–человек, чувство–искусство.. These are not bad rhymes in themselves, but they are used far too frequently. As in the previous case, such rhymes remain permissible.

It should be noted that the number of weak and poor rhymes is virtually infinite. It is much easier simply to remember which rhymes ought to be used and to rely on those in one’s poetry. After all, my purpose here is not to demonstrate what is bad, but rather what is good. There exist countless strong and worthy rhymes that are not merely acceptable but genuinely necessary in poetry. Moreover, one must never settle on a single successful type simply because it works well; these various possibilities should constantly be mixed and combined in order to create poetry that is both complex and effective.

Good rhymes are far fewer in number than bad ones, but believe me, there are enough of them not only for your lifetime, but for the lifetimes of your great-great-great-grandchildren as well. The Russian language is not merely extraordinarily rich. It possesses a remarkable ability to absorb new words without losing the old ones. Thus, for example, “голкипер” and “вратарь’” coexist in the language without displacing one another. This is a good thing: in another five hundred years, people will likely forget that words such as “бутерброд” or “портмоне” were once foreign borrowings.

But let us return to rhyme.

Let me remind you that rhyming identical parts of speech in the same grammatical form is called parallel rhyme and is by no means the pinnacle of rhyming technique.

Verbs

Verb–noun. This is the classic ideal rhyme, the kind one should strive toward.

In general, Tsvetaeva was a genius of a poet; I place her a rank above Anna Akhmatova (may Akhmatova’s admirers forgive me). Tsvetaeva’s rhymes are astonishing—unbelievably precise and extraordinarily powerful. Read her and learn! This quatrain is cited here as a clear demonstration of the magnificent rhyme бездну–исчезну (the second rhyme is also ideal: adverb–noun). Here, the verb in the first form is absolutely consonant with the noun. This is precisely the kind of sound one should strive for. A few more examples, because this cannot truly be explained in words—you simply need to read them.

And so on. Thousands of examples could be provided.

Verb–adjective. As in the previous case, this is an excellent, complex, and beautiful combination. But it is much less common because of its difficulty. I would even say it is extremely rare. With some effort, I managed to find such a rhyme in Tsvetaeva:

The point is that verbs and adjectives are ordinarily not naturally consonant with one another; such rhymes are not systematic in poetry, but accidental. Although I should note that the use of precisely these accidental, authorial rhymes is the highest form of poetic art.

There are pitfalls here as well. When rhyming a participle with an adjective, one may accidentally stumble into a weak rhyme resembling the “adjective–adjective in the same form” type. On the other hand, the rhyme затаённый–зелёный is actually rather good, since the words belong to different grammatical categories.

Verb–pronoun. This is a “stylish” rhyme—fairly rare, but beautiful. I do not, however, mean rhymes of the type “куя–буду я”; that belongs to another category, where one word rhymes with two or more words (compound rhyme, which will be discussed later). The canonical example of a “verb–pronoun” rhyme is:

This is an absolutely flawless rhyme, astonishing in both originality and beauty—as, indeed, are almost all of Brodsky’s rhymes. Alongside Tsvetaeva, he is highly recommended reading.

Verb–adverb. From the same poem (“The Funeral of Bobó”), I will cite another stanza:

There are no particular “pitfalls” in the last three cases: practically all rhymes constructed according to these principles are very good.

Verb–numeral. The rarity of such rhymes is explained by the limited possibilities for using numerals. In poetry, numerals probably occur less frequently than any other part of speech; the more refined their use, the more elegant the effect can be. They rhyme with verbs very easily: три–посмотри,шесть–поесть and so forth. It should be noted that the rhyme пять–распять is not considered good because of its overuse.

Verb–conjunction, particle, interjection. Of course, full-fledged rhymes involving conjunctions and particles are extremely difficult, because these parts of speech are generally monosyllabic or otherwise very short. There are very few conjunctions and particles available for rhyming. To be honest, I have not found any truly complete examples in classical poetry (excluding compound rhymes—but that is a separate topic, to be discussed later). Nevertheless, one should still attempt it.

With interjections, given sufficient desire and skill, one can rhyme virtually anything imaginable. I know one poet who somehow managed to rhyme animal noises (in particular, sounds of copulation) with ordinary words and constructed an entire poem in this manner. Vulgar, certainly, but highly effective. Verbs, however, belong to those parts of speech that do not naturally lend themselves to rhyming with interjections.

True, “allo” is an artificial interjection. More natural examples would be something like “ah!”, “eh!”, “wow!”, or “achoo!” For example:

Nouns

Noun–adjective. This is a simple and beautiful type of rhyme, though there are certain reservations. It is not recommended (though not forbidden) to rhyme adjectives with nouns derived directly from adjectives themselves. For example, учёный–крещёный is not an especially strong rhyme, though it remains entirely acceptable.

Rhymes of this kind are encountered constantly, yet they do not become clichéd because of their extraordinary variety.

Noun–pronoun. This is likewise a rather simple and natural rhyme. In fact, the noun is perhaps the most “multifaceted” part of speech: there exist thousands of nouns differing from one another in form and sound, making it possible to find a rhyme for almost any word in Russian—or even in a foreign language.

Noun–adverb. In general, this type of rhyme does not differ greatly from noun–adjective rhymes. It occurs somewhat less frequently, but presents no technical difficulty.

Noun–numeral. Like other rhymes involving nouns, this type comes easily and can just as easily be adapted to suit the semantic demands of virtually any poem.

I deliberately provided here an example not involving the primary form of the numeral, in order to demonstrate that literally anything can rhyme with a noun.

Noun–preposition. I shall simply provide an example:

Noun–conjunction, particle, interjection. An excellent noun–particle rhyme can be found in Joseph Brodsky:

As for interjections, they are extraordinarily easy to rhyme—up to such constructions as труха–ха-ха-ха», «оп!–галоп, and so forth.

Thus, we have established that the noun is the most convenient part of speech for rhyming. But the fact is that it is easy to rhyme what already rhymes easily (there is a tautology for you). Try instead to rhyme beautifully something that stubbornly resists all your efforts!

Adjectives

We have already discussed adjective rhymes with nouns and verbs. Let us therefore consider the remaining varieties.

Adjective–adverb. This is an extremely difficult rhyme, because adjectives and adverbs are fairly similar parts of speech, and rhyming them often results either in metrical disruption or in monotonous rhymes such as беспечный–навечно or лежалый–устало. This is not the worst kind of rhyme, but it is rather simple and contains nothing extraordinary. Even in strong poetry, I have not found a single truly outstanding example of such a rhyme. Therefore, I recommend using this type in unstressed lines, where no vocal emphasis is placed upon it during recitation. As an example, let us turn to Marina Tsvetaeva:

Although in Tsvetaeva one may also find a far stronger variant:

Adjective–pronoun. Because of the fairly considerable variety of pronouns, this rhyme presents almost no difficulties, although it occurs rather rarely.

Adjective–numeral. Here one encounters certain pitfalls. Numerals, in one of their forms, behave like adjectives, and the resulting rhymes are simple and primitive (пустой–шестой, for example). But if one avoids such “descriptive” forms of numerals, it becomes possible to obtain rather interesting rhymes. In literature, to be honest, I have not encountered such examples either, but this is due, as mentioned above, to the generally infrequent use of numerals.

That is to say, numerals rhyme rather well with the short form of adjectives.

Adjective–preposition, particle, conjunction. Like most rhymes involving these parts of speech, such rhymes are exceedingly difficult and represent the highest level of poetic virtuosity. I combed through several dozen poetry collections (I confess, somewhat superficially), but simply did not discover any examples of truly solid rhymes of this type. So if you succeed, write to me—I will include your example in this treatise. Still, here is one example of a “conjunction–adjective” rhyme:

Adjective–interjection. As I have already written, one can adapt almost any sound to an interjection, and therefore obtain virtually any rhyme desired. Thus, for humorous works, for example, плюгав–гав-гав or плохих–апчхи sound quite effective.

Other Parts of Speech

I have deliberately examined verbs, nouns, and adjectives in detail, since they are the principal parts of speech. Adverbs and numerals are not auxiliary parts of speech either, but I shall not analyze them so thoroughly. The main thing that needed to be understood from the preceding discussion was the general method of rhyming; I believe I have explained it more or less clearly. I shall dwell separately on rhyming identical parts of speech with one another in such a way that the result does not become a weak homogeneous rhyme.

Identical Parts of Speech

Verb–verb. Producing a good verb-to-verb rhyme is not particularly easy. Most verbs stubbornly prefer to rhyme with their “colleagues” only when both stand in the same grammatical form. Try to avoid such rhymes, just as you should avoid adverb-to-adverb rhymes—the situation here is essentially the same.

Noun–noun. This is the simplest variety of rhyming identical parts of speech, owing to the countless diversity of nouns.

Боли is feminine gender, singular number, genitive case. Своеволий is in the same case, but neuter gender and plural number. Quite an excellent rhyme, in fact. In general, the key is simply to seek rhymes between nouns in different grammatical forms.

Adjective–adjective. Rhyming adjectives standing in different forms is practically impossible—or at the very least extraordinarily difficult. Therefore, one should strive to achieve a deep, maximally precise, and rich rhyme when combining adjectives in the same form. In other words, not merely the ending itself should rhyme, as in золотой–тугой (which is a poor rhyme).

Incidentally, the second and fourth lines here also contain an excellent adjective–pronoun rhyme.

I will not examine the remaining combinations: the principle remains the same. In general, parts of speech possessing a wide variety of forms (nouns, interjections, pronouns) are far easier to rhyme than more uniform ones. In any case, a rhyme of the type “common part of speech–common part of speech” is rather dull. That is why we strive for magnificent compound rhymes and all manner of rhyming “special effects.”

Proper Names

Rhyming common nouns is all well and good. But one can do better. The use of first names, surnames, geographical names, automobile brands, and the names of factories or ships is an extremely skillful and effective poetic device. Naturally, such words must fit into the semantic fabric of the poem. What does this kind of vocabulary make possible? First, by using names—especially those of foreign origin—it becomes possible to “catch” a rhyme for a word to which no ordinary rhyme can be found. Second, a person listening to the song or reading the poem will involuntarily become curious about whom the author has mentioned; perhaps they will even look up the unfamiliar name in an encyclopedia, thereby educating themselves in the process. Enlightenment to the masses.

Or:

The rhyme розы–ройса is simply masterful. In this case, the double use of proper names creates a vivid impression and conveys the sense of the author’s great erudition. Incidentally, Eleanor Thornton was the woman who, in 1911, served as the model for the “Spirit of Ecstasy” figurine that now adorns the hoods of Rolls-Royce automobiles.

In “Letters to a Roman Friend,” Joseph Brodsky uses the name Postumus perhaps ten times throughout the poem. This invented name both fills the metrical position beautifully and produces an effective rhyme:

If, in a poem, you wish to address a woman in such a way that she remains abstract and the poem remains understandable to any reader, do not hesitate to invent names. In my own song “Eleanor de Gonzac,” both the heroine and the girl named Ferney are improvised names invented purely to fit the rhyme, since no other satisfactory rhyme could be found.

And if you are not inventing the name yourself but have decided to use a real one, do not limit yourself. Use names like Alyona, Yulia, or Irina, even if you have never known anyone by those names. Or Nikolai, Foma, Pyotr. It does not matter.

Word Formation

There once lived a remarkable man—Willy Melnikov (1962–2016). One of the most talented contemporary poets, as well as a painter, prose writer, and polyglot. He invented the concept of muftolingva and introduced it into Russian literature in the mid-1990s. What exactly it is can only really be understood through an example.

Melnikov merges words together (имперья сбросили орлы), combining two or three words into one and thereby creating unique semantic and poetic forms. Such words make it possible to sustain not only the rhyme, but also the precise meter of the poem. There are several other poets who employ similar techniques, but only the pioneer himself used it with such extraordinary talent.

Foreign Words

We live in the twenty-first century, which means that poetry must search for new forms. Foreign words that have not entered the Russian language but are nevertheless widely known and easily understood can serve the same purpose in poetry as proper names do.

Here, admittedly, the English word upgrade does not actually appear in the rhyme itself, but the principle is the same. Why not use it instead of the word “improvement” if it fits the poem so perfectly?

Here is an example of an interesting rhyme for the word “губам.” A fashionable Internet term has found a new poetic application. Incidentally, this poem also demonstrates an example of continuous rhyme (that is, not only the line endings rhyme, but also the middles of the lines).

Here, in the second half of the poem, we expect completely different rhymes—but certainly not the proper name “Blank” and the English “okay.” Mel Blanc was the American actor famous for voicing cartoon characters.

In general, the unexpectedness of rhyme is a marvelous effect, something every poet should strive for.

After the word “порох” (“gunpowder”), everyone expects the rhyme “пулей” (“bullet”). But no! Arbenin masterfully avoids the cliché and uses an entirely different word.

But whatever one may say, the highest prestige in poetry unquestionably belongs to compound rhymes—that is, rhymes in which a single word rhymes with several words. Rhyming carryovers (or split rhymes) may also be considered a type of compound rhyme.

Such rhymes are highly specific and used rather rarely. Their appearance is often caused by an excess of syllables in the poetic line, but only a truly skilled poet can escape the difficulty in this way. The use of such rhymes is complicated by the problem of placing double stress within a single word, which is why poets generally attempt to shift the stress onto the first element while leaving the second unstressed (in anapestic or amphibrachic meter). Here are my own attempts at creating such a rhyme:

In general, this is beautiful, though uncommon and not especially versatile. A magnificent use of carryover rhyme can be found in “Grenada” by Mikhail Svetlov:

Here, the “invisible” ending of one line becomes the beginning of the next. This device is extremely difficult and beautiful, and I strongly recommend it.

Let us now turn to compound rhymes proper (or multiword rhymes). Here, of course, the possibilities for invention are absolutely limitless. For example:

In this example, the word козни rhymes simultaneously with three response words: Бог с ним. The rhyme is nearly perfect and exceptionally beautiful.

A slightly simpler variant: страха ль–знахарь. Notice how the soft sign places the letters “r” and “l” on equal footing, even though in their hard forms they do not rhyme. Here is another example from Marina Tsvetaeva: Вариант чуть проще: «страха ль — знахарь». Заметьте: мягкий знак уравнивает в правах буквы «р» и «л», не рифмующиеся в твёрдом состоянии. Привожу ещё пример из Цветаевой:

And here is one of my favorite examples of a magnificent compound rhyme from Willy Melnikov:

Here, in fact, we also encounter a stunning play on words: отведать Адамовых яблок, восСоздатель, and the metaphor небосклонность крыш.

An exceptionally virtuosic and difficult variety of compound rhyme is the multiword split rhyme—that is, a rhyme between one word and fragments of two or even three other words. It is related to compound rhyme, but considerably more complex. Солнце–сон целое, судорог–разнесу дорог, раб расти–храбрости, тех, кто рушащееся–архитектор, шёпот–хорошо под, за сто и–глазастые (all by Vladimir Mayakovsky).

In Sologub’s example, the rhyme is magnificent because the “ст” in the responding rhyme leaps forward into the following line.

Ordinarily, compound rhymes are understood to be those involving auxiliary parts of speech (pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, particles), while multiword rhymes are those involving full lexical parts of speech used wholly or partially. In general, I do not think there is much more to say here. If you genuinely feel poetry, such rhymes will come to you quickly and naturally, and they will lend real beauty to your verse—especially multiword rhymes.

I should also mention another characteristic device: the broken rhyme—a rhyming construction in which one of the words is cut off, yet its meaning remains clear to the reader or listener from the context. Most often, it is used as a comic device. Душе–сумасше..., времена–припомина.... The aforementioned poem “Grenada” by Mikhail Svetlov includes precisely this type of rhyme. Another example:

This is quite an effective “trick” device.

Finally, there exist the so-called pantorhymes. These are consonances that include not merely individual words or their endings, but entire poetic lines.

The following elegant pantorhyme is written with remarkable mastery:

An interesting and rare variation is the crossed pantorhyme, in which the words of (a) the first and third lines and (b) the second and fourth lines rhyme with one another:

Pantorhyme testifies to a highly developed sense of language and an exquisitely refined command of words, but it has almost no practical application because of the incredible difficulty involved in using it. Closely related to pantorhymes are the so-called homograms, which are discussed in the chapter “Entertaining Versification.”

This section relates more to meter and poetic structure than to rhyme proper, much like the sections on word formation and foreign words. Continuous rhyme implies that not only the endings of lines rhyme, but also their middles.

It is easy to notice that besides the rhymes Фрейд–флейт (here we have an excellent example of using a proper name to obtain a strong rhyme for a difficult word) and номера–вчера, there are also internal rhymes: устал–металл and телефон–сон. Continuous rhymes may also be inexact. Furthermore, they may appear in one part of a poem and disappear in another. Here is another example:

Here one can see that the continuous rhyme divides the poem not in the middle, but closer to the beginning of the line. The point is that such a rhyme should occur where the poem contains a caesura. A caesura is an internal poetic pause dividing the line into two or more equal or unequal segments. Theoretically, at the place of the caesura one could simply begin a new line every time.

A caesura dividing the line into two equal half-lines is called a medial caesura. Incidentally, it should be noted that in the cited poem by Viktor Pelevin, continuous rhymes appear only in several quatrains rather than throughout the entire poem, and this is perfectly normal.

An interesting variety of continuous rhyme is the autorhyme—a chance rhyme; a consonance of words unintentionally inserted by the author into a text or literary work and not affecting its artistic value or perception. In poems with conventional end rhyme, an autorhyme may appear only at the beginning or inside the line. Unlike initial or internal rhyme deliberately introduced by the author, accidental consonance arises spontaneously and is not a conscious device. Autorhymes can be found both in Ancient Greek poets, who knew nothing of regular rhyme, and in classical and modern European poetry, including Russian poetry.

Autorhyme is entirely optional, but it embellishes the poem.

Sometimes the autorhyme is intentional from the outset; in that case it becomes an internal rhyme. An excellent example of internal rhyme may be found in Fyodor Sologub:

Another variety of continuous rhyme is initial rhyme—a rhyme formed by the opening words of the lines:

An original variation of this type is linking rhyme. In it, the end of one line rhymes with the beginning of the next.

And that is, perhaps, all concerning rhyme. No less important an element of versification is, of course, meter.