When I first discovered poetry, I noticed patterns there, too, particularly in all the different poetic forms: a limerick is five lines long with the first, second, and fifth lines rhyming; a ...

Then rhyme collapsed. John Milton—a poet who influentially decided to forgo rhymes in his epic poem, “Paradise Lost” —inflicted an early blow. But it was the modernists who killed off rhyme.

A study of tracks from the debut albums of major hip hop artists has found that rhyming patterns come as second nature to some of rap's biggest stars - likening them to modern-day poets. Linguists at ...