My post yesterday was actually a sonnet in iambic pentameter, with an ABBACDDCEFFEGG rhyme scheme. I didn’t format it as a poem, because I was trying to get into the mindset of someone for whom this was everyday speech.
I wonder whether it would be possible for us mere humans — not a hypothetical super-genius race — to learn to improvise such things in real-time. I’m imagining a recreational activity in which a group of pleasantly fanatical people get together periodically, agreeing to speak to each other only in iambic pentameter.
After enough practice and some time, words might start to blossom into rhyme. A community could form around pursuing it.
Oops, I fear I already am doing it!
Maybe the freestyle rap community would be worth checking out.
Yes, good point — that’s likely the nearest thing to a society of rhyme already happening.
There’s something similar here in Tuscany.
Old people get together and they improvise following a precise scheme and metric (called Ottava Rima) while discussing a specific topic.
Benigni is very good at doing that.
guzman.
I don’t see it:
I FIND that I am FILLED with FASciNA
tion AT the PROspect OF a WORLD where DAI
ly SPEECH was ALways RHYMED and MEtered, SO
that EACH new THOUGHT came OUT like POeTRY.
OK, I’ll break it down:
I find that I am filled with fascination
at the prospect of a world where daily speech
was always rhymed and metered, so that each
new thought came out like poetry. A nation
capable of thinking in these ways
might well evolve a culture more creative,
with everyone an artist. If each native
always had a lovely turn of phrase,
would their population even know it?
Would people feel like artists all the time?
Just because your words come out in rhyme
doesn’t mean you think you are a poet.
And not to put too fine a point upon it,
what if speech all came out as a sonnet?