Jana krause
  • Books
  • Social
  • About
  • Poetry
  • Stories
  • Contact

Soliloquy

so·lil·o·quy
səˈliləkwē/
noun
noun: soliloquy; plural noun: soliloquies
  1. an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers
Picture

Wordplay: Writers, Rappers, and Rockers

11/11/2017

0 Comments

 
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.
Picture

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.
Picture

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.
Picture


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!"
Picture
Last, but not least...
'Scuse me while I kiss this guy
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About me

    I write novels and poetry and this blog.  

      If you'd like to see newly posted content, subscribe below and you'll occasionally see my stuff in you inbox.

    Subscribe to Soliloquy

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Broken Blue Willow
    Characters
    Children's Literature
    Creativity
    Fan Fiction
    First Snow
    Inspiration
    Literature
    Lyrics
    Mother's Nature
    Music
    Old Books
    Poetry
    Rejection
    Short Stories
    The Orbiter
    Words
    Writing

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2019
    October 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from logan_x, LodestonePhotography
  • Books
  • Social
  • About
  • Poetry
  • Stories
  • Contact