Do all poems have to rhyme?

No.

Whether a poem rhymes or not is up to the poet and based purely on what they want to achieve.

Your mom is old fashioned. It used to be that almost the only poems taught in school were rhymed, so many generations of people grew up thinking that way.

There are many very interesting discussions of this right here in this forum already, because people ask this question all the time. Skim down through the threads, and within just a page or so, you should find terrific, and sometimes passionate and entertaining, responses to your question.

In his book The Ode Less Traveled, Stephen Fry writes an extraordinarily interesting, helpful and bloody enjoyable section on rhyme - the goods, the bads, the origins, all sorts of things.

If you're interested in learning about poetry - and you like a read that's fun as well - I very highly recommend this book. It's brilliant.

don't listen to these people. mind your mother.

all poetry must rhyme.

i don't want to have to tell you what horrors will be visited upon you if you break the cardinal rule.

I like poetry to rhyme, and be melodic and emphatic and compelling with the choice of words and how they rhyme, although most of my poems are lyrics to songs. Doesn't non-rhyming poetry fall in the prose category? I've written a little prose, it has structure but doesn't rhyme.

TouchMeKnott said:

Doesn't non-rhyming poetry fall in the prose category?

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if it did, how could it be non-rhyming poetry?

No.

(Easily answered by reading some.)

An understanding of poetry as something that necessarily rhymes puts all poetry's eggs in one basket. Perhaps the result shows in how often new poets attempt poems that bring little but rhyme to the table.

Among poetry's other characteristics are strong senses of rhythm, juxtaposition and counterpoint, assonance, the huge dramatic and ironic potentials of line breaks and stanzas, and the centrality of metaphor, while so often underlying all of them is a peculiarly vital sense of suggestion that allows greater resonance than a poem's few words would seem to allow.

Some of those things are useful and admirable in prose, but they are niceties and not of its essence. It does just fine without them.

You should not have to ask this question. If you read poetry, you would know the answer.

Anninyn said:

No.

Whether a poem rhymes or not is up to the poet and based purely on what they want to achieve.

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+1.

Poetry is what you make of it, not what others say it should be. Look at E. E. Cummings.

Yes, do. e.e. cummings wrote sonnets when he felt the sonnet form fit the purpose. He studied Latin and Greek in high school, and before he experimented, you can be sure he thoroughly understood the history of poetry and how forms worked. His experiments had purpose; they weren't a general, aimless abdication of principles.

eta: That sounded a bit harsh, and I apologise for that. Essentially, I agree. I'm all for experiment too, but I'm not at all in favor of ignoring the past altogether, and I'm not in favor of poetry by accident. (Trial and error is great - but don't show me every error; let's just see the successes.)

Nataanii said:

my mom said that all poems have to rhyme because that's the basis for poetry...

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Tell Mom free-verse poetry (non-rhyming) has been around prior to the late 1800's and French Poet, Arthur Rimbaud, who free verse styles became widely copied and accepted after his death.

Verse, must rhyme.

Poems, however, do not.

Prose poetry and non-rhyming aren't the same thing. Prose poetry is prose that has elements of poetry in it. Non rhyming is poetry that just doesnt rhyme.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a good example of non-rhyming poetry. It may not be for everyone, but it is worth taking the time to read.

So short answer... No doesnt have to to rhyme.

Personally, I write poetry if I'm feeling moody and then too, I prefer it to rhyme.

Not saying that it has to tho.....

... centuries back, poetry had to rhyme, more or less. Not so anymore. When it comes to lingo, it's a free-for-all like you say. There are still some poets who buck the trend and rhyme anyway. It's good to be aware of trends and whatnot. Just don't get shackled to them. Find your own groove and follow your own inclinations. Say what you want to say in a style that suits that. G'luck.

KellyAssauer said:

Tell Mom free-verse poetry (non-rhyming) has been around prior to the late 1800's and French Poet, Arthur Rimbaud, who free verse styles became widely copied and accepted after his death.

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Non-rhyming poetry has been around far, far longer than that, even.

Free verse is just one kind of non-rhyming poetry.

There's also many structured forms that don't rhyme, such as blank verse.

In the immortal words of Bob Dylan (this is from memory)

if it rhymes, it rhymes
if it don't, it don’t.
if it comes, it comes,
if it won't, it won't.

Milton's Paradise Lost, a blank-verse epic from 1667, doesn't rhyme.

Here, in another well-known epic poem - this one from 1817 - Byron takes time out to acknowledge this topic, and that there's room in the world for both (bolding mine).

Don Juan, Canto 1, st. 201:

Lord Byron said:

All these things will be specified in time,
With strict regard to Aristotle's rules,
The Vade Mecum of the true sublime,
Which makes so many poets, and some fools:
Prose poets like blank-verse, I'm fond of rhyme,
Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;
I've got new mythological machinery,
And very handsome supernatural scenery.

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So, the question of whether poetry must rhyme - or even whether 'true' or 'great' poetry must rhyme - is not a recent one. And we haven't even discussed haiku.

There is still a vast disconnect between Asiatic and western concepts of poetry.

Which means, of course, that there is enormously fruitful ground to be gone over.

It doesn't matter if its a rhyming poem, but sometimes rhyming makes the poem more good to read.

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sugarBS said:

...sometimes rhyming makes the poem more good to read...

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Other times it makes it better.

Rhyme is just that newfangled thing that's been introduced since Beowolf.