Listening To The Sounds Of Poetry

Sounds Like Poetry

I love the sound of poetry. As a poet I consciously play with sounds. As well as reading poetry with our eyes, we must read it with our ears. In other words, listen to the sound the words create. Sounds of words and sounds within words attract my attention when I am writing a poem. I repeat sounds in the hope of attracting the ear of my readers. I want the sounds I have selected to be noticed and noted. The reader's mind is the destination for my sound bytes.

I may repeat a consonant at the beginning of certain words to create ALLITERATION. In this extract from 'Simply A Walk In the Park, I wrote the line containing several words beginning with the consonant 'b.':

A large wooly dog barks boldly at the butterflies

In the poem Jeffrey the Jellyfish' I have used lots of alliterative combinations.

Jeffrey was a jellyfish
A rather jolly jellyfish
He floated freely in the sea
Bobbing and bouncing happily

Here is another example from 'Monday, Monday, Not A Fun Day'
where you can clearly hear a host of 'm' words.

On Monday mornings, I am moderately mean,
A maddening monotone moaner.

Misery is my Monday morning master.

I also use sounds to link words and convey a meaning in the same way writer's use onomatopoeia to convey certain meanings. I also create my own sound words (PACOW!) Listen to the ow/ou sound in these lines from the poem, 'Why Don't Cows Use Their Horns.'

A brown cow jumped out in front of me.
KAPOW!
PACOW!
Poor car, Poor cow

Poets use rhyme to create sound patterns. In this limerick poem, 'Cheesed To Please You' you will notice how the rhyme is at the end of the lines. The rhyming pattern, which limericks demand is AA, BB, A

An old man who lived in Kildare
Found a large purple mouse in his hair.
He named the mouse Milton
And fed it on Stilton,

Although it preferred Camembert.

When a poet uses rhyming couplets sound is critical to success. Listen to this:

As I was going to Wangaratta
I met a man who love to chatter

He talked to me of many things
Apples, tractors, angel wings

I also like to use ASSONANCE where a vowel sound (a-e-i-o-u) is repeated within words. Can you hear it in the following poem?

Bruce And The Goose

Big Bruce Booth from Booligal

Found a huge, blue goose in a tree

He rescued the goose

Who couldn’t get loose

Then invited the bird home for tea

Hope you like the sound of all this... Try it yourself. Listen to your words ever so closely. Make those words sing out.

Poetry Inspired by Images and Objects

There are many ways pictures and photographs can be conscripted to support the writing of poetry. Allow me to share a few ideas with you: Old photographs are a great source of inspiration. Cynthia Rylant explored this idea with great success in her book 'Something Permanent' where she employed the Depression era photographs of Walker Evans to add a new voice to the starkness to the lives of people experienced under extreme circumstances. I have used this strategy to spark many individual poems. In ' I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon,' I used a photo I had taken in 2004 while living in New York to inspire a poem. The poem was based on a story related by a friend who grew up in New York. I regularly combined poetry and pictures in my writer's notebook, drawing on inspiration from the photograph and my personal memories. We can also utilize existing cartoons and illustrations to create ekphrastic poems. I frequently use the illustrations of Jim Pavlidis to co

Opposite Poems

O pp o s ite P oem s In his book, ' How To Write Poetry,' Paul Janeczko presents the idea of opposite poems. Paul suggests they could also be referred to as antonym poems. This is wordplay and it's fun to try. Here are some examples Paul provides to help us see very clearly how these short little poems work. I think the opposite of chair Is sitting down with nothing there What is the opposite of kind? A goat that butts you from behind Paul Janeczko You will notice the poems are written in rhyming couplets. They can be extended so long as you remember to write in couplets. Paul shows us how this is done. What is the opposite of new? Stale gum that's hard to chew A hot-dog roll as hard as rock Or a soiled and smelly forgotten sock You might notice that some of Paul's opposite Poems begin with a question. The remainder of the poem answer the question posed. Opposite poems are a challenge, but it is a challenge worth trying. Not e

Powerful Poetry, 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston

This week, Poetry Friday is hosted by Janice Scully @ Salt City Verse where Janice shares some original words and offers us a taste of Thomas Carlyle to ponder. I encourage you to join a host of poets from all around the globe and visit Janice's page... Almost two years to the day, I wrote a post featuring the poem 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston. The poem was included in Brian's first book of poetry, 'You Took The Last Bus Home.' A very powerful Reverso poem and technically brilliant. A Reverso poem can be read from top to bottom or bottom to top. It will often express opposite opinions depending on which way you read it. Such poems really make us think. A Reverso poem is like a picture turned upside down, a frowning face upended to reveal a smiling one. The poem read in reverse, contradicts itself with an opposing message. In 'Refugee' Brian Bilston focuses on a societal issue that tends to polarize feelings and the opposing views are clearly in eviden

Diane Mayr25 November 2016 at 14:01
I especially enjoy onomatopoeia, especially when it involves sounds immediately recognizable, but unexpected.
Brenda at FriendlyFairyTales25 November 2016 at 23:28
Sound is key to why people like something, when they don't always realize why. It's like a secret code the poet employs to tap enjoyment for the reader. I like all of your examples here, but especially your mouse named Milton.
Carol26 November 2016 at 00:09
Our fourth graders are working on the tools of poetry right now! I can't wait to share this with them, I think they will love hearing a real poet's voice talking about how he actually uses those tools!
Linda Mitchell27 November 2016 at 01:31
Fun! I don't read poetry aloud nearly enough. Thanks for the nudge. It's so much fun.
Violet N.27 November 2016 at 05:22
Congratulations on your book! And what great examples of sounds from your poetry... memorable and easy to understand.
Carol Varsalona30 November 2016 at 20:55
It was so much fun reading your post, Alan.

Search This Blog