Bouts Râmes

A New Blog

Welcome to Bouts Râmes, a blog dedicated to the love of poetry and its creation. What do we do here? Think of us as the "Friday Five" of poetry. Twice a month, come here to participate in our "game":

Addison, in the Spectator, .... described them as lists of words that rhyme to one another, drawnup by another hand, and given to a poet, who was to make a poem to the rhymes in the same order that they were placed upon the list. The more odd and perplexing the rhymes are, the more ingenuity is required to give a semblance of common-sense to the production. For instance, the rhymes breeze, elephant, squeeze, pant, scant, please, hope, pope are submitted, and the following stanza is the result:

Escaping from the Indian breeze,
The vast, sententious elephant
Through groves of sandal loves to squeeze
And in their fragrant shade to pant;
Although the shelter there be scant,
The vivid odours soothe and please,
And while he yields to dreams of hope,
Adoring beasts surround their Pope.

The first list of rhymes will appear on April 1, 2004. Come here and try your hand at it.