The poems of Jannai and his fellow-workers aimed at giving the substance of these Agadic expositions in the form of agreeable verse. Hence, Jannai's productions are versified Agadas. But as he was not enough of a poet to reproduce the elevated and striking passages of Agadic literature, as his rhymes were heavy and labored, and as he also burdened himself with the task of commencing his verses with consecutive letters of the alphabet, and of interweaving his name into them, his poems are dull, clumsy, and unwieldy. Altogether neo-Hebraic poetry gained nothing during its earlier years by the introduction of rhyme. Eleazar ben Kalir or Kaliri (of Kiriat-Sepher), one of the first and most prolific of the _poetanic_ writers, and a disciple of Jannai, was just as clumsy and harsh as his master, and his style was even more obscure. He wrote over 150 liturgical pieces, including hymns for the festivals, penitential prayers for the holy-days, songs of lamentation for the principal fasts, and various other compositions which cannot be classed under distinct heads. Kaliri put into most artificial verses a large portion of the Agadic literature, but only a few of his compositions have any poetical value, and none possesses beauty. In order to overcome the difficulties which were presented by the allusions to the Agada, by the use of rhyme, of the alphabetically arranged initial words and the interweaving of his name, Kaliri was obliged to do violence to the Hebrew language, to set at defiance the fixed rules which govern the use of words, and to create unprecedented combinations. In place of word-pictures, he often presents to his reader obscure riddles, which it is impossible to solve without a thorough acquaintance with the Agadic writings. Nevertheless, Kaliri's poetic compositions made their way into the liturgies of the Babylonian, Italian, German, and French Jews; the Spaniards alone, guided by delicate feeling for language, refused to adopt them. Kaliri was honored as the greatest of the _poetanic_ writers, and tradition has glorified his name.