Phenomenal Woman

Study Guide

Literary Devices

Rhyme

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Literary Devices Rhyme

Angelou’s poem has an irregular rhyme scheme, which gives the poem a loose and lyrical sense of flow. The opening stanza, for instance, has the following rhyme scheme: AABA CDEFE GHGH. Note how the stanza begins with a rhyming couplet, and how the A rhyme repeats for a third time in the fourth line. After that, however, the rhymes briefly cease. Indeed, the words marked as B, C, D, and F have no rhymes. In the last third of the stanza, however, rhymes return. The words represented by E (i.e., “lips” and “hips”) and H (i.e., “phenomenally” and “me”) are normal rhymes. By contrast, the words represented by G (i.e., “woman” and “woman”) make what’s known as an identical rhyme, which refers to instances where a word rhymes with itself. The use of identical rhyme here gives added emphasis to the speaker’s sense of her own womanhood. In addition to this selective use of end rhymes, the speaker also occasional uses internal rhyme, as in line 2: “I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size.” Sporadic examples of internal rhyme like this give the poem a loose sense of structure.