We discussed in class the fact that Emily Dickinson didn't rhyme her poetry but used slant rhymes. And even as far as slant rhymes go, there were some that were a stretch. I did however enjoy the use of these slant rhymes. I don't think her work would be nearly as good if she used proper rhymes. If she had used proper rhymes, it would sound too sing song or childish, like a nursery rhyme. If it had been perfect rhymes, i know I wouldn't like her work much. You can criticize her, saying she's lazy to use slant rhymes, but the use of slant rhymes opens up a whole number of words you can use instead of a perfect rhyme. Slant rhymes allow the writer a larger selection of words, allowing them to really say what they want. I don't think she was lazy for using slant rhymes, rather they allowed her to express what she really wanted.
I also do not like the criticism about the rhymes. Who cares if it isn't perfect rhymes? I really don't like poems that rhyme. For some reason a lot of people think poems have to rhyme, when a poem can really be whatever you want practically, as long as it involves at least one word, or letter I guess. I remember a scene in a TV show where one character criticized a child who wrote a love letter for them because it didn't rhyme, so it wasn't a poem really. Where in fact we all know rhyming is not necessary at all in a poem. I'm not a huge fan of Dickinson, because I'm not a huge fan of rhyming poems, but I like her enough because she's only half way there.
It's true--we think of perfect rhyming as something that only children's poems do. It's actually harder to think of the NON-obvious slant rhyme than to head directly to the obvious june/moon, run/sun kind of rhyme that we learned as children.
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