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Im analyzing this poem, and I noticed that none of the words rhyme with each other in a stanza, but words rhyme with another word from tge next stanza. I understand rhyme scheme is supposed to be within each stanza. Is there a word when rhyming occurs outside the stanzas???

“I heard the screams above the blood-fire street Echo sickly through disease vestibules

The reaper gathers as he ridicules The paddlers of flash, the buyers of meat.

Tonight the reaper walks with silent feet To visit we’re friends who sleep in gutters.

Near refuse cans. They awaken and utter Nothing, as if they knew their life’s complete...”

This is not the whole poem by Enrique B. Del Rosario. I noticed that.. Street and meat and feet and complete Vestibules and ridicules Gutters and utter Rhyme, but each word that rhymes is from a different stanza. Is there a term for something like this?

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  • This is a sonnet. The rhymes are where they're supposed to be. The division into stanzas is unconventional. But lots of sonnets are divided into stanzas that rhymes cross. See The Windhover. Jul 29, 2018 at 18:15
  • You might want to look up the term rhyme schemes, typically given with capital letters for the same end rhymes. You can find them for styles of verse such as sonnets.
    – Lambie
    Jul 29, 2018 at 18:19
  • This question might also be better suited to writing.stackexchange.com or literature.stackexchange.com. Jul 29, 2018 at 20:24
  • I know what rhyme schemes are, I just haven’t seen a term for when rhyming occurs outside a stanza. What type of rhyme scheme should I say this poem has? I can’t find the term for it.
    – S.Chant
    Jul 29, 2018 at 21:21

1 Answer 1

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The term for linking different stanzas together by rhymes between them is called chain rhyme.

A famous example is Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, which starts

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

Here, the first two stanzas are linked by here rhyming with queer, near, year.

However, I don't know whether I'd call your poem chain rhyme or a sonnet with an unusual division into stanzas. Sonnets aren't usually classified as chain rhyme, no matter how they are divided into stanzas.

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