Moonrise Kingdom's Summery Childhood Vibes Illustrate Our Earliest Conceptions About Poetry

To Rhyme or Not to Rhyme? Wes Anderson's Sam Shakusky Has Some Opinions

You’re reading PopPoetry, a poetry and pop culture Substack written by Caitlin Cowan. You can learn more about it here. Check out the archive to see other TV shows, movies, and films whose intersections with poetry I’ve covered. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, subscribe so you won’t miss a post!

---

via Film Quarterly

To rhyme or not to rhyme? Poets writing today know that there are endless ways to fashion a poem, but do readers know this, too?

Consider the annoying cultural tic of “You’re a poet and you don’t even know it,” a phrase usually uttered after someone makes an unintended rhyme in casual conversation. Or the fact that some readers who are new to poetry will look up in shock from a free verse poem and say, with a vague air of having been cheated, “but it doesn’t rhyme!”

Rhyme informs not only our earliest conceptions of what poetry is, but also our