REVIEW OF A RHYMING DICTIONARY

Originally published in The Los Angeles Times Book Review (Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA: 1985)

REVIEW OF A RHYMING DICTIONARY

Compiled with winged computer’s speed,

This book will aid those who still heed

That ancient frostbit, clanging art

Of coupling feelings, heart-to-heart.

You know the trick I mean so well

That wrings each line out with a bell,

That never, ever lets sound labor

Unless your thoughts become a saber

To poke into your reader’s side,

Prevent him being preoccupied

But with your tambourine, that thing

You jingle-jangle, ring and ding?

It’s true, rhyme can inflate the worth

That unreal couplings bear on earth.

Like matching lepidopterists

With humorists.  Or terrorists.

But those who sneer that it’s all gloss

Should think, without it, what chaos!

How could Shakespeare have know “foster”

Was the way we pronounce Gloucester?

Whatever you judge this art’s true merit,

No poet will want to disinherit

This chance to make such lists his part-time

Pastime in case he’s our next Sondheim.

Here, high tech pairs not just by sight,

But lists rhymes like Fahrenheit.

It’s possible with this dictionary

To see twelve mates for visionary.

So don’t take up your quill and write,

“Let’s cite another rhyme for site!”

Use data bases’ expertise

To find new rhymes, like antifreeze.