Rhyme

 I woke up early and while still lying in bed was working on something on rhyme in Kay Ryan's work, but without writing anything done. Without being my absolute favorite poet, she is someone whose work I enjoy more than most. It is witty and intelligent, well put together. 

1) Her verse is heavily enjambed, with very short lines of what seems like free verse, but she uses rhyme frequently. So the first thing to say is that she decouples rhyme from line-endings. Internal rhyme is nothing new, but she can put rhyme at the end of a phrase or sentence, or a line, in unpredictable ways. 

2) Secondly, she likes off-rhymes and assonance more than perfect ones. These two factors together make her rhyming unconventional. It rhymes, but imperfectly and not usually at the end of lines. 

3)  This use of rhyme is in the support of her aphoristic wit. It gives just the right degree of emphasis to the words that stand out. 

Here is an example

A CAT / A FUTURE

A cat can draw

the blinds

behind her eyes

whenever she

decides. Nothing 

alters in the stare 

itself but she's

not there. Likewise

a future can occlude

still sitting there,

doing nothing rude. 

It's not really free verse, though, is it?

A cat can draw the blinds behind her eyes [iambic pentameter]

whenever she decides [3 iambs] 

Nothing alters in the stare itself [iambic, with one anapest to start] 

but she's not there [2 iambs] 

Likewise a future can occlude [iambic, with trochee to start] 

still sitting there [iambic] 

doing nothing rude [trochaic].