“The sound of the language is where it all begins and what it all comes back to.”
~ from Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Power
Advertisement jingles and mottos.
Political slogans.
Prayers.
Singsong taunts uttered by childhood bullies.
Each of these employ sound and language to embed messages into our lives—they’re unconsciously (often unwillingly) memorized, and can become part of our mental landscape to such a degree that they influence our behaviors for potentially the rest of our lives—we buy a certain product or vote for a certain party over others, or turn to religion for comfort in times of trouble, or chronically consider ourselves lesser than and make decisions about our well-being accordingly.
Obviously it’s not as simple as this; the meaning behind the words matters, and who utters them, and the contexts within which they’re uttered and received. Still, I think it’s fair to say that sets of words crafted with special attention to sound and rhythm carry a special kind of power.
That power is easy to learn and to wield.
Below, I offer a quick primer on some of the main sonic devices used in poetry, with examples from two poets of the 20th and 21st centuries respectively, whose poems often embody sonic goodness. I also offer up an introduction to rhythm/stress/meter via my favorite melancholy 19th century priest-poet.
The Basics
Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Internal Rhyme, Near-Rhyme
I’ve bunched these all together because although in theory they each have particular definitions, in practice they often meld and become unified into one big powerful sonic device. Maybe we could call it AACIN. Maybe not.
But here’s a quick set of definitions and examples, using poems by Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) and Dora Malech (b. 1981) for material:
Alliteration:
When neighboring words’ first (and stressed) sounds (usually consonants) are repeated.
Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.
~ Gwendolyn Brooks, from poem “A Sunset of the City”
*
Patience of the poor and put-upon.
~ Gwendolyn Brooks, from poem “The Lovers of the Poor”
*
Opening shot: morning. Mid-May. Mid-maybe, misgiving, mistake, mid-take your time repeating after me
~ Dora Malech, from poem “Director’s Cut”
Assonance:
When neighboring vowels rhyme or nearly rhyme.
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths
~ Gwendolyn Brooks, from poem “The Bean Eaters”
*
a scream-strung sun streaming worship me.
~ Dora Malech, from poem “Flora and Fauna”
*
Sometimes, with assonance or with any sonic device, two “neighbors” (which by the way can be words OR phrases) are more distant, as in the below, where “miss me” and “this yield” have assonance but are on opposite sides of the line:
I’m now full and grown green—whisper can't miss me, body of blossoms, this yield.
~ Dora Malech, from poem “Flora and Fauna”
Consonance
When the consonants at the ends of words repeat.
You had better not throw stones upon the wrens!
~ Gwendolyn Brooks, from poem “The Lovers of the Poor”
*
How silence could give place to such a noise.
~ Gwendolyn Brooks, from poem “In Emanuel’s Nightmare: Another Coming of Christ”
Internal Rhyme
When there’s a rhyme within a line. Also called “middle rhyme.”
No stranger to the stationary bike, I admit I spit at the hills
~ Dora Malech, from poem “Some Speech”
*
I mine the ore in boredom, and redo.
~ Dora Malech, from poem “Some Speech”
Near-Rhyme
When two sounds are similar but not exactly alike.
Quite a clatter morning after.
~ Dora Malech, from poem “Fiddler’s Money”
*
The corpse is in the copse, of course.
~ Dora Malech, from poem “Hush Money”
*
Without, there would be no hate. No Diplomats. And households would be fresh and frictionless.
~ Gwendolyn Brooks, from poem “In Emanuel’s Nightmare: Another Coming of Christ”
Challenge:
Construct a poem using AACIN (Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Internal Rhyme, Near-Rhyme). Mix and match them, combine them, and try to carry them beyond the definitions I’ve given here.
For example:
Expand consonance to near-consonance, or apply it to unstressed consonants. Expand assonance to near-assonance. In short, embrace “near”.
Get brave with distance—introduce near-rhymes to compliment phrases that came 3 lines earlier.
Push and stretch, call and respond, set up long-distance marriages between sounds.
Enjoy.
The books I used for these examples:
Gwendolyn Brooks: Selected Poems, Harper & Row, 1963
Dora Malech: Say So, Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011
Stress
Consider the following lines of despairing but delicous poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), from a multi-part poem called “Carrion Comfort”:
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing– Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling- ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.
Hopkins invented something (or, depending on who you ask, renamed or repurposed or reorganized something) which he called “sprung rhythm” (the basic rules of which are outlined in the Challenge below). Whenever there might be any doubt as to where to place a stress, he’s included an accent marking.
Clearly his poetry is also reeking of, soaked in, and ornamented with all the AACIN in the universe. It’s unabashed. I love it. And I think Hopkins’ style introduces a great way to dive into playing with stress and rhythm, because it’s both controlled and free. He considered it to be more like natural speech than the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare or other more traditional forms—yet it was still more formal than the “free verse” championed by Walt Whitman.
Challenge:
Try writing some lines (or a poem) using a basic outline of Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm.”
First, a quick definition: A foot is a set or combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. Different kinds of feet refer to different combinations. An iamb, the most well-known, is made of one unstressed and one stressed syllable, in that order.
In sprung rhythm,
Each foot begins with a stressed syllable.
Each foot can have between one and four syllables (you can vary the amount as long as you stay within this parameter).
Choose a particular number of feet to use per line, and stay consistent.
That’s it! Have fun, use end rhymes and lots of AACIN if you like, and—this is important—occasionally, where needed, break these rules.
In part 2, I explore more sonic devices, including dissonance, phonetic symbolism, cacophony and onomatopoeia.
I’d love to hear from you about these newsletters, your poetry, or requests for future topics. Reach out by leaving a comment or email me anytime at ecblair@gmail.com.
I’m also available for hire—to offer feedback on manuscripts or individual poems, or to act as advisor/consultant for your writing practice or project. My fees are on a sliding scale. Learn more.
Happy July!
~ Elisabeth
P.S. My poetry memoir about the years I spent in the troubled teen industry, because God loves the wasp, is available to order from Unsolicited Press directly, from Indiebound or Amazon, or by ordering through your local bookstore.