The expression, “throwing a wrench into the works,” typically
refers to the effort to prevent a plan or keep something from working properly.
In poetry, that wrenching can occur in wrenched rhymes.
True rhymes not only have echoing syllables at the end of each rhyming word, they have the same emphasis or syllabic stress. For instance, round/found echo the sound and also the accent.
Conversely, singing/bring
wrenches the true rhyme of sing/bring,
whereas rhyming/wing emphasizes the differences in syllables – i.e., RHYming/ WING.
Wrenches can also occur by forcing the poem’s syntax (i.e., normal
sentence structure or word sequence) in order to make a rhyme. For an example
of such violence to the English language:
Wrenched syntax puts words in a
position weird
when a poet tries to make lines
rhyme-adhered.
Or to say it the regular way:
Wrenched syntax pushes words
around just so they’ll rhyme – even if the phrase or sentence now makes less
sense!
That said, you might want to wrench your words and rhymes on purpose for the sake of humor.
For more on rhymes, see the
prior post “Good Times to Write in Rhymes.”
For more help on writing or revising poems in general, A Poet’s Guide to Writing Poetry will help.
In addition to that paperback book
(based on my former poetry correspondence course) the A to Z poetic terms in
the e-book, The Poetry Dictionary for Children and for Fun makes
a great way to enjoy the summer with creative kids of all ages.
©2021, Mary Harwell Sayler, poet-writer, book author in all genres, including A Gathering of Poems
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