Wordplay: Writers, Rappers, and Rockers

What do these four men have in common?

And what do they have in common with me?

We all love words and wordplay, specifically, the use of holorimes.

Holorime (or holorhyme) is a form of identical rhyme in which the rhyme encompasses an entire line or phrase. A holorime may be a couplet or short poem made up entirely of homophonous verses.

Crossword puzzles and silly words

I have always loved words. Makes sense. I love books, which are filled with them. I like crossword puzzles because I enjoy how the words fit together in a nice grid by sharing letters. 

I like beautiful words that look pretty on the page when written by hand, like melancholy. I like words that are pleasing to pronounce, like soliloquy (a favorite, hence the title of this blog). 

I like silly words, like bumfuzzle. When I was a Kindergarten library teacher, I would take attendance by having each student repeat a silly word of the day. Favorites were gardyloo!, widdershins, and flibbertigibbet. Of course, we always made sure to giggle with library voices. Shhhhh

I also love alliteration. For some reason, these are the ways words most often get stuck in my head. Alliteration is the reason I respect the way many rap artists manipulate words in seemingly magical ways.

Holorime Examples

Below are some examples of holorimes in music and verse. 

I don't listen to a lot of rap, however, when I was researching holorime lyrics, the results were dominated by hip hop artists. It's really no surprise. Rappers are masters at wordplay.

from Can't Knock the Hustle

"We get together like a choir
To acquire what we desire..."

My daughter brought this next song to my attention while we were discussing holorimes in the car. I'm a fan of David Bowie, but this one had eluded me. Thanks, Margaret.

from Aladdin Sane

"Who'll love Aladdin Sane
Battle cries and champagne
Just in time for sunrise
Who'll love Aladdin Sane"

[Aladdin Sane/a lad insane]

The next artist, Corey Taylor, is one of my favorites. He is the lead singer for both Stone Sour and Slipknot. It is clear from merely his song titles that he loves wordplay. Stone Sour's newest album is chock full of holorimes.

a few track titles from the album Hygrograd:

Fabuless [fabulous]
Taipei Person/ Allah tea
[type A personality]
Rose Red Violent [violet] Blue
Friday Knights [nights]

The Slipknot song (Sic) showcases Taylor's clever use of holorimes in the title by playing off the meaning of the word [sic]--literally "so, thus"-- in the publishing world  and it's homonym "sick", and juxtaposing the lyrical meaning of the song. 

The last of these four men is Miles Kington, a British journalist who wrote satire and humour. He is also known for inventing a language known as Franglais, a mix of English and French. Clearly, he enjoyed wordplay. below is his more traditional holorime contribution:

"In Ayrshire hill areas, a cruise, eh, lass?"
"Inertia, hilarious, accrues, hélas!"
--Miles Kington, "A Lowlands Holiday Ends in Enjoyable Inactivity".

My Holorimes

Now I come to my holorime contributions. 

1. The first example comes from a poem that never amounted to anything I want to share, but this holorime stuck with me. 

Your eyes avoid my eyes of void

I may use it somewhere else, someday...

2. Reindeer/Rain, Dear

This comes from a poem I wrote for my children's poetry book ​First Snow:

​I hovered ‘tween warm bed and icy cold floor
With a child-like awe from years before,
From the window, a sound I couldn’t ignore.
“It’s the rain, dear,” my sleepy wife said.
“All that nog has gone to your head.
Now don’t be silly, come back to bed.”
“Didn’t you read the paper today?”
She said in her quiet curmudgeonly way.
“Unseasonably warm and wet, they say.”
But to hear such clatter this very night!
These ancient bones just might catch sight
Of a sleigh driven by that jolly old sprite.
Ma stubbornly snored, and paid no heed
As eight magical beasts flew past with speed.
“Just the rain, dear,” I laughed. 
Reindeer, indeed!

3. Ah! Will B. Combones/ I will become bones

I wrote this poem after the phrase "I will become bones" came to me and wouldn't go away. I must have been reading Shakespeare at the time, because I feel the influence of that style. 

Ah! Will B. Combones (I will become bones )
Wenflesch is dead! (When flesh is dead)
A barren scaffold 
In cool earthen bed

Ah, Will B. Combones 
For feasting germs
Melting away as
Pearly sinews churn 

Ah, Will B. Combones
Consumed with glee
Worked into the dust
Buried deep and free

Poor Mr. Combones, and alas, poor Mr. Wenflesch!

A Few More Tidbits

"A Hollow Rhyme Holorime" by Ronberge

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!"

Last, but not least...

'Scuse me while I kiss this guy