Near-rhymes in poetry?

Question

What do you think of using near-rhymes rather then all perfect rhymes throughout a poem?
Like fake & great, life & right...Instead of make & lake, might & tight...
And I mean all throughout a poem, not just once or twice.

Answer 1

One time-honored way of mixing them is to use near-rhyme throughout the poem, but at the very end, use one or two pairs of full rhymes. This can help give the poem a sense of closure, which you may or may not want to do.

Answer 2

Some hardliners insist that only perfect rhymes will do. But there are plenty of examples of near rhyme (aka off rhyme and slant rhyme, among other terms) in the work of good poets past and present. Emily Dickinson is one prominent example.



(Just as there are some people who don't like near rhyme at all, there are some who don't like to see it mixed with perfect rhyme, and would actually prefer to see near rhyme all through a poem than to see a few near rhymes scattered through a poem that used mostly perfect rhymes. And there are some who would say that that's a silly prejudice, that there's nothing wrong with combining near rhymes and perfect rhymes in the same poem.)

Answer 3

There's nothing wrong with it at all...if it works, for the poem.