A pruning poem is a poem that uses rhymes that are prunings of each other.
Each rhyme word is one letter shorter than the rhyme word before. Otherwise, they are the same word. While it is possible to write a pruning poem in couplets or longer, it is most effective when the reader sees the pruning on the page. Thus, George Herbert, who conducted many formal experiments in verse, writes Paradise as a pruning poem.
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- What open force, or hidden charm
- Can blast my fruit, or bring me harm
- While the inclosure is thine arms?
Pruning could be accomplished by cutting terminal as well as initial letters, but initial position pruning is the more common and noticeable.
Famous quotes containing the word poem:
“There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.
There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)