Common mistakes in Sinterklaas poems
Most Sinterklaas poems do not go wrong for lack of talent, but because of a few recurring pitfalls. The good news is that you can learn to spot them, and the fix is usually small. Below are five mistakes, each with a bad example and an improved version. The examples are Dutch because that is what most of these poems are, and each has an English gloss.
1. Forced rhyme
Forced rhyme is when the rhyme word decides the content instead of the other way round.
Jij hebt een grote tuin met gras, en daarom ligt er ook een das.
Roughly: You have a big garden with grass, and that is why there is also a scarf lying there.
Why is there a scarf? Only because it rhymes. The listener notices, and the joke is gone. The fix is to change the first line until the rhyme fits the content by itself:
Jouw gazon is de trots van de straat, elk sprietje weet precies waar het staat.
Roughly: Your lawn is the pride of the street, every blade knows exactly where it stands.
Now the rhyme word really adds something. If you cannot find the rhyme, look in the rhyme dictionary and choose a different end word for the first line, not for the second.
2. Uneven line length
A line of five syllables followed by a line of twenty makes the reader stumble. The poem loses its rhythm and sounds like ordinary prose with the occasional rhyme word.
Sanne helpt thuis, ze hoeft niet te vragen, en ze doet echt alles wat er maar gedaan moet worden, ook op doordeweekse dagen.
Roughly: Sanne helps at home, she does not need to be asked, and she really does everything that has to be done, even on ordinary weekdays.
The second line is almost twice as long. Keep lines within a few syllables of each other:
Sanne helpt thuis, ze hoeft niet te vragen, ze doet het gewoon, op alle dagen.
Roughly: Sanne helps at home, she does not need to be asked, she just does it, every day.
How to measure and feel this is explained in metre and rhythm.
3. Forced word order
To get a rhyme word to the end, writers twist sentences until nobody talks like that. A slight inversion is fine, but if you read the sentence aloud and it sounds like Yoda, it has gone too far.
Een kaas heeft Jos op de markt gekocht, en daarmee zijn tante hij bezocht.
Roughly: A cheese has Jos at the market bought, and with it his aunt he visited.
The "he visited" at the end was put there only for the rhyme. First write the sentence in normal Dutch and then look for a rhyme that fits that sentence:
Jos kocht op de markt een kaas van groot formaat, en bracht hem naar tante, al was het laat.
Roughly: Jos bought a huge cheese at the market, and took it to his aunt, even though it was late.
The same event, but now someone could actually tell it that way.
4. Too many in-jokes
A joke that only the writer and the recipient understand does not work when others are listening. Then the rest of the room is shut out of the poem.
Denk aan de kip en dat ding in de hal, Jeroen weet het, het was weer een knal.
Roughly: Think of the chicken and that thing in the hall, Jeroen knows, it was another bang.
For anyone who was not there, this is baffling. Explain the joke in the line itself, in a short image:
Jeroen nam ooit een kip mee naar kantoor, de balie schrok en de koffie ging door.
Roughly: Jeroen once took a chicken to the office, the front desk was startled and the coffee carried on.
Now even someone who never heard the story understands why it is funny. Test it by letting someone who was not at the incident read the poem. If that person laughs in the right place, it works. With a large group, be extra strict about this.
5. Too long
What is read aloud runs too long faster than it does on paper. Whoever wants to fit everything in makes a list instead of a poem.
Nou Femke, wat kan ik nu eigenlijk over jou zeggen, als ik het allemaal netjes uit zou moeten leggen?
Roughly: Well Femke, what can I actually say about you, if I had to explain it all properly?
This goes nowhere. It is a run-up with no content. Start with the punchline instead:
Femke is aardig en drinkt veel thee, dus de Sint heeft koekjes, drie of twee.
Roughly: Femke is kind and drinks a lot of tea, so Sint has biscuits, three or two.
Aim for four minutes of reading aloud at most. That is about five to six verses of four lines. If you have more, cut the weakest verse. Usually that is the second one.
A quick check before you print
- Is there a rhyme word that has nothing to do with the subject? Rewrite the line before it.
- Are there lines that are clearly longer or shorter than their neighbours? Trim or fill out.
- Does a sentence say something you would never say in ordinary speech? Put the words in normal order.
- Would someone who was not there understand every joke? If not, add half a line of explanation or cut it.
- Does reading it aloud take longer than four minutes? Take out the weakest verse.
After this check, read the poem aloud one more time and give it to someone else. A fresh reader sees at once what you can no longer see after an hour of writing. Fix the mistakes in the writing studio.