Monorhyme

Monorhyme is a rhyme scheme in which each line has an identical rhyme. The term "monorhyme" describes the use of one (mono) type of repetitious sound (rhyme), usually at the end of each line. This is common in Arabic, Latin and Welsh works, such as The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, e.g. qasida and its derivative kafi. Monorhyme is also used in the third verse of the American rapper Jay-Z's song "Already Home".

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. This is seen in the poem "Even the Rain" by Agha Shahad 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.

Another poem on Monorhyme

Foundation Day of DCS

In DCS I developed my Monorhyme so

Am standing for paying homage you know:

Many schools were standing in a single row

To compete with strong DCS considering it a foe.

Let there be many enemies who throw

Big, deadly, deadening, dangerous ammo

DCS stands still like it did years ago.

Many strong winds against her did blow

Forcing many parents, people say ‘NO’.

But truth cannot be hidden easily so

Standing here my DCS still like a rock did you know?

Knowledge flows from DCS in snow

Or in fire which IAS, Doctors show;

Shoot if I am wrong with an arrow

To adore it greatly letting aside ego.

Ego! Alas is the only exception throe

Which keeps all sad, and to anger sow –

It made world mad and few here also.

The school down to earth in alto

Says “Tejswina Vadhit mastu”

In such a school many teachers grow

Prosper and settle to avoid a row.

This foundation day, I promise to show

Good humans in all of us will grow;

Will shine more brightly there also,

Lethargy, fatigue, stupidity will go.

Waiting again for life in Divine pro

My Monorhyme developed here so.

By Sanket D. Jain

See also

• Perfect and imperfect rhymes
• Singleton (mathematics)

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

• More examples of monorhyme poetry are displayed at http://allpoetry.com/list/17480-Monorhyme
• Murer, E. (2010, March). Poets.Org: From the Academy of American Poets.