It is possible for rhyme to sound 'forced' in a poem, though if someone was going to tell you that it was forced in your poem they ought to give you examples of what they're talking about. We consider a rhyme to be forced:
1when the arrangement of words is twisted around to put a rhyming word at the end of a line when it would normally be in the middle of the line somewhere,
2.when a person extends a line beyond reason to put a rhyming word at the end of the line,
3.when a person uses a tone inappropriate for their poem to get a rhyming word,
4.when a person inserts a line that doesn't really go anywhere or mean anything to get a rhyme for another line, etc.
For instance:
1. I love you more every day that I live.
If you were in trouble, my life I would give.
This is not normal speech. Normally we would say 'I would give my life if you were in trouble.'
2. I rode out to Texas on a palomino horse,
With a promise on my lips that I would bring law to this town, even by force.
Whoa! Check out the length of that second line! It's a mile long!
3. He jerked the bloody hook into the cow,
and said, "I would not want to be thou."
The violent aggressiveness of jerking a hook into a cow, meant to shock the reader, doesn't really agree with using archaic language like 'thou'. There wasn't much of an animal rights movement in the Middle Ages
. Maybe a movement for people' rights to have enough animals to eat... 4. Cradle the razor like a baby to your arms,
Nurture the wounds as flocks upon your farm.
*Coffee-crotch burn litigation is absurd.
Let blood replace your tangled, jangled nerves.
*the offending line. What does McDonalds' lawsuits have to do with cutting, or the cathartic effect of such poetry?
Here's another case:
5.Rhyming a stressed syllable with a non-stress syllable can cause a forced rhyme:
I rhyme so much, I start to sneeze;
and from my nose I blow cookies!
The 'ies' in cookies is a non-stress syllable, while the 'eeze' in sneeze is a stress syllable. When you say it out loud, the rhyme is kind of awkward.
If you can think of different cases where rhyme may be forced, I will happily add them to this column (and credit you).
Thank you.
Mike
Here's another example of #1, thanks to Scott Adelmann
Syntax reversed odd is and abounds,
oh, Lord, just like Yoda - funny it sounds.
Now that's just a mess! I know some of you like Yoda, but you gotta be short and green to pull that off. Any of you short and green???This was taken largely from a discussion on the group boards of 'Legitimate Contest Holders'.
Adding your comment:
Thanks!
love autumn
s ~genie~
I can't count how many times I've read similar writings. Frankly, I rhyme, I have always rhymed, I will probably rhyme forever. The fact is that free verse writers outnumber us, many of them never putting any effort towards trying to write the very thing they seek to stab, yet, feel themselves authority enough to bash it!
Too funny and so so true. I used to force rhyme....in kindergarten! 
but I need the practice , and I am self confidant enough
