Before you can begin composing any poetic work, you must first think about how you want to treat each physical element within the poem. Once you have established what types of elements you would like to combine to create your masterwork, then you may move on to deciding how you would like to combine them. While subsequent modules will discuss in more detail different types of feet, lines, and stanzas, it is important that you first be able to examine a poem and recognize by sight each of these parts. Other than the individual word and the syllables that compose it, the line is the smallest unit of a poem.
A line is a unit in the structure of a poem consisting of one or more words arranged together.
Every poem is made up of lines. A line of poetry is not always a whole sentence, nor does it have to be just a single word—unless you choose a traditional form of verse, you are not limited in any way as to how long or how short your lines should be. Most formal types of poetry dictate that you use a specific number of lines in a specific grouping pattern; however, before choosing a verse form, you should begin by understanding your purpose, what you hope to achieve in writing your poem. You must be aware that each line of your poetry must contribute something to your poem as a whole. Even where you choose to break your lines is vital to the meaning and flow of your poem.
The division between each line in a poem is called a line break.
Line breaks help to create a pattern in your poetry. Where you choose to break a line can dramatically contribute to or detract from the effectiveness of your verse. You should always remember that whatever is at the beginning or the end of a line will get slightly more of the reader’s attention than what is in the middle. If you break a line mid-sentence, it should be to achieve a certain effect, to draw attention to a particular word or idea. If you break your lines at the ends of complete sentences, you should realize that it will lend to your poem a more structured and rigid feel than would ending your lines mid-sentence.
Just as important as where you break your lines is how you choose to group the lines within your poem. Will there just be one group, comprising the entire poem? Will you divide your poem into two unequal groups, or will you group your lines in regular patterns of twos and fours? However you decide to create them, these groups of lines are another essential unit within your poem.
A stanza is a division of a poem made by arranging the lines into units separated by a space. Though not all poems are divided into stanzas, verse with such divisions has a stanzaic form.
The stanza is another way to group and to place emphasis upon certain thoughts or words. When writing any poem, you must decide how you want to group each line. Some poems will have a single stanza—that is, there will be no break between groups of lines before the end of the poem. Other poems may have many breaks, creating multiple stanzas that are groups of a few lines.
A stanza break is the space that separates two groups of lines to form separate stanzas.
Basic Parts of a Poem (Page 2)
You determine your desired effect for a particular piece before deciding how to break your stanzas. If your goal is to express a series of thoughts that lead to a conclusion, you may wish not to break your poem into stanzas at all, or you might want each of your thoughts to be in a separate stanza, with the conclusion in its own stanza at the end. While the decision about stanza and line length is ultimately yours, it is important that you understand how each of these elements can be used so that you may choose the right forms for your poetry.
Understanding the Basic Structure of a Poem
Review the following poem. After you have read the poem through one time, read through it a second time while you listen to the recorded version. Think about how the particular line breaks and stanza breaks that Blake chose to use are effective, how they affect on which words and ideas the emphasis is placed, and how this emphasis and effectiveness would change if the line breaks and stanza breaks were changed. To help you with this activity, try breaking the lines and stanzas in different places.
London I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man, In every Infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry Every black’ning Church appalls: And the hapless Soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most through midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot’s curse Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse. William Blake (1794)
A poem seeks both to reflect the world as the poet perceives it and to create it again as the poet imagines it to be. A poet can use many different tools in addition to word choice—like rhythm, rhyme, and meter—to reflect and recreate the world. Poets use form as one way to communicate more creatively and more effectively. We can define form most simply as the poem’s appearance on the page, its physical shape. Every poem has a form, whether it has many lines or only a few lines, whether it has one stanza or many. However, even an element of form as basic as the stanza can work for the poet. Consider these lines:
Putting some space between the groupings of lines has the effect of sectioning off the poem, giving its physical appearance a series of divisions that often mark breaks in thought or in the poem, or changes of scenery or imagery, or other shifts in the direction of the poem. (J. Paul Hunter, ed. The Norton Introduction to Poetry, New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986, p. 172)
To help you understand this point, we have changed the form of one of William Carlos Williams’s poems, “This Is Just to Say.” Instead of showing it in stanzas, we have shown it in sentences:
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me. They were delicious, so sweet and so cold.
Basic Parts of a Poem (Page 3)
These lines seem more ordinary than poetic, something you might find on a note on your refrigerator door. But when you look at the poem in its original form, as shown below, you can see that it has a series of stanzas, or divisions. Williams grouped the words into short lines (of three words or fewer) and then further grouped these lines into stanzas. By carefully choosing how and why his poem would take shape, Williams forces us to think about each word in these lines. Because his line breaks and stanza breaks cause us to read more slowly, we think about the words individually, and we savor each one instead of rushing through them. Each line stands on its own before it joins the next line.
This Is Just to Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox
and which you were probably saving for breakfast
Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold William Carlos Williams (1934)
After reading the same words in a different format, you can see that Williams wanted to slow our reading, to have us linger over every detail, picturing not only the plums and the icebox, but also the relationship between the writer of these words and their reader. Williams manipulates the line breaks and stanza breaks so effectively that he raises the plain language from a few lines about fruit to a poem that deals with temptation and redemption. (Redemption is a popular theme in poetry. It is the act of seeking forgiveness by making up for doing wrong.) If you were to substitute an apple for the plums, you could read this poem as Adam’s note to apologize to God for eating from the Tree of Knowledge in Eden.
Write three or four sentences casually, as if you were leaving a note for a roommate or family member. Then separate your sentences into short lines (between one and five words); then add spaces between these groups of lines, as Williams has done. Try two or three different combinations until you feel that you understand how each word breathes and comes to life when you give it extra emphasis in this way.
Basic Poetic Techniques: Word Choice and Grammar
Once you have decided what your poem will be about, the order of your ideas or events, and who will be doing the talking, you must decide how you will write your poem. By employing certain types of language and certain techniques, you can enhance the meaning, rhythm, and style of your verse.
Diction is the choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language in a literary work.
Every word you use in your poem is part of the poem’s diction. Diction is an essential part of your personal and your poem’s style. It should reflect your subject matter because you can affect your poem’s texture, flow, and nearly every other aspect by selecting certain words and phrases, and by manipulating sentence structure and syntax.
The way in which words and phrases are arranged to form grammatical structure is syntax.
By manipulating the syntax within your poem, you can change the way your poem sounds and flows. You can also hint at who your narrator is, as well as at different characteristics about him. For example, if you write your poem with impeccable grammar, the reader will assume the speaker is someone who has a certain level of education and who is knowledgeable about language and how to use it correctly. If you write your poem using incorrect grammar and large words that are used inaccurately, this will indicate to your readers that the speaker has a lower level of education and is perhaps trying to sound impressive by using words that sound nice but that she does not truly understand. By making subtle changes in word choice, phrasing, and syntax, you can alter the tone of the entire poem and greatly affect how your readers perceive your narrator.
When writing poetry, what you do not say is as important as what you do say. At times, you may decide to leave out certain words, to choose some phrases over others. Sometimes, you may choose to imply a certain idea or thought by using an ellipsis within a sentence to indicate that you have deliberately omitted some word or words.
Ellipsis is the omission of a word or words necessary to complete a grammatical construction, but which is easily understood by the reader. Also, an ellipsis is a punctuation mark, made up of three periods with spaces between them (. . .), used to indicate an omission.
For example, take the following short stanza:
He loves me. He loves me not. Or does he?
Perhaps these words sum up perfectly the idea you are trying to express through your poem. Or perhaps you would like to leave more of a sense of ambiguity, or a sense of being unsure, when the stanza ends. You may then choose to write the lines as follows:
He loves me. He loves me not. Or . . .?
Perhaps instead of ending the last sentence with a question mark, you would like your words to trail off, as though they were part of an incomplete thought. For another effect, you could write the stanza a bit differently:
He loves me. He loves me not. Or does he . . .
Here, we are unsure if the poet is asking a question—“Or does he love me?”—or if she has merely begun another thought—“Or does he want a milkshake?”
Basic Poetic Techniques: Word Choice and Grammar (Page 2)
The ellipsis can be quite effective if used correctly and sparingly. Its effect is not simply to imply a pause in reading, keep in mind, but rather to indicate that the thought or sentence is not complete, that something has been left out—it is this omission that is intended to give the reader pause. It therefore would not be the best use of this subtle piece of punctuation to include an ellipsis at the end of each line of your poem, or in each thought you express. Use the ellipsis carefully, and use it well. Adding it only where it is absolutely necessary will make it stand out—illustrating that it serves a purpose—and will enhance, rather than detract from, the overall tone of your poem.
The tone of the poem is the speaker’s attitude in style or expression toward the subject, e.g., loving, ironic, bitter, pitying, fanciful, solemn, etc. Tone also refers to the overall mood of the poem, a pervading atmosphere intended to influence the readers’ emotional response and create expectations of the poem’s conclusion. It suggests a tone of voice, not musical tone.
The tone that you choose for your poem is vital to its meaning. The tone conveys more than the words themselves do—it indicates the emotions and attitudes of the speaker and can greatly influence the emotions and attitudes of the reader. Once you’ve decided what to say and who will say it, you must think about how this speaker feels about the subject of your poem, and what the speaker thinks about it. Precise word choice and phrasing will suggest to your readers in what tone of voice they should read your poem. Simply writing words in a poetic format does not create a great poem—a work that through diction, syntax, and tone affects how the reader feels and thinks about something is an effective and well-written poem. Other techniques that can help to affect the reader involve using language precisely to create different effects and enhance the meaning of your poem.
Basic Poetic Techniques: Basic Figures of Speech
There are many different ways in which you can use language to create meaning in your poetry. Figurative language often lets you craft descriptions in more complex and less literal ways. It is one of the biggest distinctions between poetry and other forms of writing. Figures of speech are a type of figurative language that allow you to create comparisons between two objects, thoughts, or ideas. There are two main ways in which you can create these comparisons.
A simile makes an explicit comparison between two essentially unlike things, usually using like, as, or than.
In this type of comparison, the association is an obvious one—the writer says outright that one thing is similar to another, for example, “Her eyes were like deep oceans.” From this statement we can assume that the woman’s eyes have the same qualities that deep oceans literally have, like a deep, dark color, an appearance of great depth. We can also assume that the writer is referring to the implied qualities possessed by deep oceans, like an air of mystery.
Ezra Pound’s brief poem “The Bathtub” is another example of a simile:
The Bathtub As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady. Ezra Pound (1913)
In this poem, Pound compares his “cooling” relationship to the actual cooling of water in a bathtub. While there are few literal similarities between a relationship and a bathtub, Pound has effectively discussed the one figurative similarity. His use of the word “as” in the opening line establishes immediately the explicit comparison.
While the word like, as, or than must appear in a simile, the converse is not always true. Including one of these words in a sentence does not automatically create a simile. We can use the following sentence as an example: “The newborn looked like her mother.” While this sentence does compare the baby to her mother, they are inherently similar to each other, by the nature of their relationship. Since a simile by definition compares two essentially unrelated things, the above sentence is not a simile.
Similes state directly the nature of your comparison—they are straightforward relationships between two objects. You can tell your readers exactly what you mean by your similes without spoiling their effects. Other comparisons are less explicit and require a degree of imagination on the part of the writer to create and on the part of the reader to understand.
A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one object or idea is applied to another, thereby suggesting a likeness or analogy between them
Basic Poetic Techniques: Basic Figures of Speech (Page 2)
A metaphor is more difficult to use than a simile. A metaphor compares two objects without the aid of the words like, as, or than that are so commonly used in similes. You discover qualities that are the same in two very different objects, and to emphasize this, you say or imply that one object is the other object. Frequently, you use a metaphor to describe something that is abstract and difficult to describe precisely using plain language, like an emotion. Metaphors are not limited to comparing abstractions; they can also compare concrete objects, things you can see and feel.
To create an effective and powerful metaphor is difficult; to describe an object using a metaphor, you must find another object that suits the comparison, as you must merely imply the relationship between the two objects. To tell your readers what your metaphor means can spoil its effect.
For example, say you are writing a poem about the wind, about how it is strong and forceful. Read the following two sentences and decide which is a more effective metaphor to describe the power of the wind:
The wind is a lion Racing through the grasses of the Serengeti The wind is a snake Rustling through the grasses of the Serengeti
Both examples are metaphors and are quite similar. Each is effective on its own, but if your goal is to express the forcefulness of the wind, the comparison with the racing lion is a better choice.
You may choose to make your metaphor more subtle, like in this example from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott”:
There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay.
Tennyson uses words like “weave” and “web,” which make the comparison between the Lady of Shalott and a spider. He allows his readers to draw this conclusion on their own, without directly stating it to them, and also to think of other characteristics associated with spiders, like their luring and predatory nature. Through Tennyson’s subtle establishment of the metaphor, we can draw much information about the Lady of Shalott .
Now that you have identified similes and metaphors within another poet’s work, create your own. In one or two lines, write a simile that compares a cat to love. Remember to use “like” or “as.” Express this comparison creatively and justify your comparison with details. Tell us the reasons love resembles a cat. Then, in one or two lines, write a metaphor that equates a thunderstorm with anger. Don’t confuse description (“the angry thunderstorm,” “the storm thunders angrily”) with metaphor. Show us with imaginative, poetic language, how anger IS a thunderstorm.
Metaphors are very important poetic devices that help to create subtleties of tone, mood, and texture that are difficult to achieve with other figures of speech. Sometimes, to emphasize a particular idea, you may use one particular metaphor for more than one line—perhaps for your whole poem.
An extended metaphor reaches beyond the usual word or phrase to extend throughout a stanza or an entire poem, usually by using multiple comparisons between the unlike objects or ideas.
Basic Poetic Techniques: Basic Figures of Speech (Page 3)
An extended metaphor should be sustained throughout an entire stanza or poem to be effective. This is difficult to do, but it can be quite impressive when done well. If you choose to use a poem with an extended metaphor, you should limit the scope of your subject to make sure that your extended metaphor is effective and easier to maintain. You should establish your comparison at the beginning and use your poem to explore the ways in which the object you are discussing is like the object to which you are comparing it. Take for example the following poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, concerning love:
Never May the Fruit Be Plucked Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the bough And gathered into barrels. He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs. Though the branches bend like reeds, Though the ripe fruit splash in the grass or wrinkle on the tree, He that would eat of love may bear away with him Only what his belly can hold, Nothing in the apron, Nothing in the pockets. Never, never may the fruit be gathered from the bough And harvested in barrels. The winter of love is a cellar of empty bins, In an orchard soft with rot.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1923)
Most simply explained, Millay compares love to fruit hanging on a tree. She says that you cannot harvest love like fruit, you cannot hoard it in barrels, in pockets, or cradled in an apron. You cannot gather and store love as though it is fruit, saving it for the winter, for the time when love is no more. Winter is used as a metaphor for death, in this case, the death of love. Millay compares fruit and love to show us how the two items are different, to illustrate that we cannot treat love like we do pieces of fruit. As you can see, she extends the metaphor of the fruit standing for love from the beginning of the poem to the end. The comparison is effective because of this extended metaphor; it allows Millay to make a strong point about the nature of love and how we should appreciate it while we have it.
A mixed metaphor occurs when two very dissimilar elements are connected, achieving a strange effect because the literal definitions of the elements are too unrelated to each other, or because the resulting comparison is false, unlikely, or nonsensical.
Most commonly, a mixed metaphor appears in conversation in phrases like “a bird in time is worth two in the bush.” These phrases, combinations of familiar proverbs, are comical and virtually meaningless, but are also mixed metaphors.
With all mixed metaphors, the first part of the metaphor does not completely make sense with the second half of the metaphor. The well-known phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “to take arms against a sea of troubles,” for example, contains two metaphors, two pieces of figurative speech. There is “a sea of troubles,” a metaphor indicating that the troubles of which Hamlet speaks are many and extensive. However, “to take arms against a sea” is physically impossible. It is this incongruity that makes this a mixed metaphor, but quite an
effective one in this case.
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Generally speaking, mixed metaphors should be avoided, but occasionally they can be quite effective. Frequently, they are used for comic effect, with the intentional incongruity chiefly in mind. Often, these mixed metaphors are combinations of proverbs, clichés, or common phrases, like “Never look a gift-horse in the mouth,” and “Grab the bull by its horns.” Certainly, “Never grab a gift-horse by its horns” is more humorous than meaningful.
Write a short poem about the emotion of your choice, using an extended metaphor. The poem should be no more than 20 lines long. Be sure to pay careful attention to syntax and diction.
By manipulating language and using it creatively, many poets are able to use metaphors and similes to create imagery that will sustain and deepen the meaning and effect of their poetry.
Imagery and images are created by figurative language used to evoke particular visual impressions in the mind, and to create other sensations and emotions in the reader.
Imagery can do a lot to affect the tone, style, and overall quality of your work. It allows your poems to speak for you so that you can show, not tell, your readers how you feel, and you can give them an indication of how they should feel without telling them. We can examine the following excerpt from a poem by Pablo Neruda for some excellent examples of imagery:
From Ode to a Beautiful Nude With a chaste heart, with pure eyes, I celebrate your beauty holding the leash of blood so that it might leap out and trace your outline where you lie down in my ode as in a land of forests, or in surf; in aromatic loam or in sea-music.
Beautiful nude: equally beautiful your feet arched by primeval tap of wind or sound; your ears small shells of the splendid American sea; … your flying eyelids of wheat revealing or enclosing
the two deep countries of your eyes. … It is not only light that falls over the world, spreading inside your body its suffocated snow, so much as clarity taking its leave of you as if you were on fire within.
The moon lives in the lining of your skin. Pablo Neruda (1956)
Many of the metaphors that Neruda uses to describe the woman’s body are beautiful images: “your flying / eyelids of wheat / revealing / or enclosing / the two deep countries of your eyes.” This phrase includes several different metaphors all working together to create spectacular imagery that helps us to truly understand how beautiful Neruda perceives the woman to be. Through these images, he is able to best achieve the desired effect of his poem.
Imagery is any description within your poem that produces in your readers sensations and emotions. It is how you tell your readers how they are supposed to feel when they read your poetry, what they are supposed to think of. Imagery is important, as it is what will help you to show rather than tell your reader what your poem is about, what the feel of the poem is. Imagery will also work with your diction and syntax to produce the tone of your work. Perhaps most importantly, imagery can create symbols in your poem, which will add layers of meaning.
Basic Poetic Techniques: Basic Figures of Speech (Page 5)
Keep in mind, however, that imagery does not create poetry in and of itself. Your poem must have meaning behind the imagery that is not elusive to your readers. Your images should relate to your subject and should be as specific as possible, appealing to all senses.
A symbol is an image that stands for or represents something else, like flag represents country, or like autumn represents maturity.
Symbols can convey the ideas and emotions embodied in an image without stating them, and always imply more than they state outright. They are the vehicle through which you argue or prove your point, convey your thoughts or ideas, convince your reader of what you are saying in your poem. As with other types of imagery, symbolism allows you to show your readers what you believe, rather than telling them.
The rose represents one of the most traditional symbols in poetry. It commonly implies beauty, fragility, purity, and love. John Clare uses the traditional meanings of the rose in his poem “Love’s Emblem.” We can determine from the title that he chose specifically for his rose to signify love, but after reading the poem, we can also see that he compares the rose to Chloe, thus enhancing and broadening the meaning of the flower.
Love’s Emblem Go, rose, my Chloe’s bosom grace: How happy should I prove, Could I supply that envied place With never-fading love.
Accept, dear maid, now summer glows, This pure, unsullied gem, Love’s emblem in a full-blown rose, Just broken from the stem.
Accept it as a favorite flower For thy soft breast to wear; ’Twill blossom there its transient hour, A favorite of the fair.
Upon thy cheek its blossom glows, As from a mirror clear, Making thyself a living rose, In blossom all the year.
It is a sweet and favorite flower To grace a maiden’s brow, Emblem of love without its power— A sweeter rose art thou.
The rose, like hues of insect wing, My perish in an hour; ’Tis but at best a fading thing, But thou’rt a living flower,
The roses steeped in morning dews Would every eye enthrall, But woman, she alone subdues; Her beauty conquers all. John Clare (1873)
The speaker offers Chloe a rose to pin to her bosom as a sign of his love for her. He draws specific comparisons between Chloe and the rose, concluding that she is “a living rose, / in blossom all the year.” The rose and the woman reflect one another’s beauty (“Upon thy cheek its blossom glows, / As from a mirror clear”). As the poem develops, Clare extends the metaphor of Chloe as a rose, and the speaker determines that, while the rose represents his love, her beauty and purity are greater than the rose, and she is not as “transient” and ephemeral. His love for her will never be as beautiful and pure as she is, although he hopes that his gift—his love—and his flattery will be enough win her over.
How To Read A Poem
Explication is the analysis of a poem based on its subject and form. Consider the following questions when explicating a poem.
First, consider the title and what its significance could be to the rest of the poem.
Next read the poem silently and then out loud.
Answer the questions who, what, when, where, and why?
Who is speaking? Who is the subject of the poem? To whom is the poem addressed?
What is happening in the poem?
When does the poem take place?
Where does the poem take place?
Why did the poet write the poem? What compelled him or her?
How does the poet write the poem?
Does the poem rhyme?
Does the poem use repetitions of sounds or phrases?
Does the poem seem to adhere to a specific form?
It is often helpful to paraphrase a poem—to write the poem in your own words—because it allows you to further understand how the details work together.
Whether you are writing about a poem or analyzing it in your head, you should try to answer as many of the above questions as possible. You should pick apart the poem, line by line, image by image, to get a good grasp on the poet’s intention. Keep in mind that there will be many interpretations. As long as you are able to prove your opinion with details from the poem, your analysis will never be wrong.
Point of View: Who Will Tell Your Story?
Defining Point of View
Once you choose your subject matter, you have to decide who will tell your story. We cannot assume that the speaker in any literary work is the voice of the writer. When we read a poem, we must assume nothing about who is talking. If you can create a believable voice with authority, you will create a more powerful poem. While this is true of any type of writing, it is particularly important when creating a poem; since poetry uses an economy of words, a poet must create in fewer words than does the writer of a novel a believable character or authoritative speaker.
The persona is the person who is talking, from whose point of view the ideas and story in the poem are expressed.
Point of view is the perspective from which you tell your story or make your point.
Every piece of literature has a speaker, the person who is writing, thinking, or speaking the words that appear on the page. As with any writing, you must choose all of your poem’s characters very wisely, but your persona is the most important of these characters. You should make this decision carefully and with your subject clearly in mind. For example, if you are writing a poem about a traumatic childhood experience, you may wish to separate yourself from the event by inventing a character to be the speaker, or by discussing the event as though you were an observer rather than a participant. Sometimes the persona is never identified, either by name or by relation to what is happening in the poem. Other times it is clearer, as when the speaker is talking about something that she witnessed firsthand. Either way, it is essential that you invent as many characteristics as you can about your persona, especially about her relationship to the poem’s events, even if you never divulge to your readers any of this information.
While you may find it challenging to adopt different voices in your poetry, you must choose your speakers with great care; if you stray too far from what you know to write from the perspective of someone very different from yourself, you risk having your audience not believe your persona. While you can certainly write from the perspective of anyone you can imagine, you must create these personas carefully and fully, and do not try to use a perspective that is too distant from what you know or have experienced. If you are particularly taken with a certain type of character, it might be easier and more believable to write as an observer of this person’s actions rather than as this person himself.
For example, if you are a male poet in his forties, it is not too much of a stretch to write from the point of view of someone of a different gender or age group. However, it is important that your characters’ experiences and knowledge include some aspect of yourself. It would be unwise, for example, to write about how it feels to pilot an airplane if you have never even set foot on a plane. Since you could not accurately write about the facts of such a foreign experience, much less express an authentic emotional reaction, your readers will not believe your writing.
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Also, be sure that you have thought out all of the aspects of your character’s situation. If you decide that your persona is going to be a woman who has just watched her youngest daughter get married, be sure to think about the many complex levels of her emotional reaction to the event. Perhaps she is happy that her daughter has found true love and has gotten married. Or perhaps she does not approve of the man with whom her daughter has decided to share her life. Why does she not approve of him? Perhaps the woman feels sad that her youngest child is starting her life as an adult and leaving the nest. Or maybe the woman is glad that her daughter has finally moved out of her home, to take responsibility for her own life. What is the nature of this mother-daughter relationship? How does this relationship affect how the mother thinks of the daughter’s marriage? How does the mother’s own marriage affect her feelings on her daughter’s wedding day?
Though you may not wish to include all of these aspects of the persona’s emotions in your poem, it is important to understand the many levels of her thoughts—regarding both the specific situation and life in general—so that you can create a three-dimensional character who will be both interesting and believable.
Look Who’s Talking
We can determine from the title of the following poem that it is about someone named Seth Compton, but what else can we conclude? Who is speaking? How old is the speaker (child, adult, elderly person)? What is his profession? What are his interests? What is the time period in the poem? What events take place during the poem? How does he feel about them? Read the poem through carefully once. Write down everything you can conclude about the persona and what is happening in the poem.
Seth Compton When I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring minds, Was sold at auction on the public square, As if to destroy the last vestige Of my memory and influence. For those of you who could not see the virtue Of knowing Volney’s “Ruins” as well as Butler’s “Analogy” And “Faust” as well as “Evangeline,” Were really the power in the village, And often you asked me, “What is the use of knowing the evil in the world?” I am out of your way now, Spoon River, Choose your own good and call it good. For I could never make you see That no one knows what is good Who knows not what is evil; And no one knows what is true Who knows not what is false.
Edgar Lee Masters (1915)
Once you determine who will tell your story, you need to decide if that character will participate in the poem’s events, or if he will be an impartial observer to what happens to and around him. Determining this point of view is an essential step in creating your poem’s narration.
Next Week Point of View: Who Will Tell Your Story? (Page 3)
First-person narration speaks from an individual’s perspective, usually a participant in what is being discussed, or one who, if not directly involved, expresses her own opinions, thoughts, and feelings about what she observes. This type of narration uses the pronoun “I” when the speaker refers to herself, and “we” when the speaker refers to a group of which she is a part.
First-person narration is very useful if you want to write a poem about something that you have experienced and feel very strongly about. It is also an excellent way to explore a character, by creating a situation into which you put your character, then recording his thoughts or feelings as though you were looking at the world through your character’s eyes. First-person narration is very effective if you are focusing on personal issues.
Second-person narration occurs when the persona is addressing another person or group of people.
Dialogue in a poem does not constitute a second-person point of view. The persona must direct the narration toward someone else. He will most likely use the pronoun “you.” These poems are very uncommon because it is difficult to write in the second-person. You should use it sparingly so as not to adopt an accusatory tone. The following poem by William Butler Yeats is written in the second-person point of view.
When You Are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. William Butler Yeats (1892)
Here, the persona is speaking to the subject of the poem, not only about the subject.
An omniscient narrator can see all of the events surrounding a situation and can hear the thoughts of each of the participants. If you break the word down to its two major parts, you can better understand its meaning: omni- means “all,” and -scient means
“knowing.”
An omniscient narrator is a good perspective to use if you want to make sure that your readers see all aspects of the situation or philosophy you are describing. This narrator can see through walls, read people’s minds, see the future and the past, and make connections and observations that normal participants cannot make because their knowledge is limited to what they know and can see, hear, feel, or otherwise sense. An omniscient narrator usually speaks from a third-person point of view.
Third-person narration uses an impartial narrator who is not a participant in the events or scenario being described in a work. Such a narrator does not express opinions directly, does not use the pronouns “I” or “we,” and cannot get inside characters’ heads, unless he is also omniscient.
Point of View: Who Will Tell Your Story? (Page 4)
Writing in the third person is a good way to allow the reader to come to her own conclusions about the events in your work. A narrator who makes observations rather than expressing opinions is a believable narrator when you want to create a speaker who is neutral, yet who can impart a series of events without judgement. Though a third-person narrator does not have to be omniscient, such a voice can most easily present to the reader the thoughts of more than one person in your poem.
Omniscient narration is usually more effective from this point of view because the reader does not get distracted by first-person pronouns (“I” or “we”) and preoccupied with trying to determine how exactly the narrator relates to the characters. Third-person narration allows the reader to assume that the speaker is not an actual character whose personality and thoughts need to be taken into consideration when looking at the work as a whole.
Once you have determined your point of view, you can decide on poetic devices to use in your poem. Some can be used with any perspective, some suggest first-person narration, and others are better suited for third-person or third-person omniscient narration.
A dramatic monologue is a speech given by a character or persona that is usually directed to a second person or to an imaginary audience. It typically occurs at a critical moment within a literary work and reveals an important aspect of the speaker’s character.
A dramatic monologue can be presented in the narrator’s voice, or it can be set aside in quotation marks as something that the narrator is telling us that a character said. Though this technique is more easily used in theatrical works or in very long pieces of poetry, you can still use it effectively in shorter verse. Perhaps your poem is about a close relationship between a brother and sister, told in the third-person omniscient point of view. The sister has always seen her brother as her hero and protector. Suddenly, the sister becomes ill, and her brother goes to her bedside. While the bedridden sister is sleeping, the visiting brother gives a dramatic speech about having betrayed his sister years before. Fearing that his sister may not survive her illness, the brother guiltily confesses, allowing the reader to see beyond his protective façade to a deeper character flaw of which his sister has no knowledge. Because it reveals something about his character of which we were previously unaware, this speech would be a dramatic monologue.
A soliloquy occurs when a character is talking to himself, whether alone or in the presence of others. A soliloquy gives the reader the illusion that he is hearing unspoken reflections—the speaker’s private thoughts—regardless of whether or not the person speaking is alone.
Point of View: Who Will Tell Your Story? (Page 5)
Read the following poems carefully and try to develop clear and complete visions of each poem’s speaker. Choose one of the poems and write down everything you can about the speaker. From what point of view is the poem told? Is the speaker talking about something that she witnessed firsthand and about how she feels about the event? Or does the speaker seem to know what others are thinking without expressing any opinions or judgments on her own part? When describing the writing techniques the poets use to convey their messages through narration, be sure to use your new vocabulary.
In an Artist’s Studio One face looks out from all his canvases, One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans: We found her hidden just behind those screens, That mirror gave back all her loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, A saint, an angel—every canvas means The same one meaning, neither more nor less. He feeds upon her face by day and night, And she with true kind eyes looks back on him, Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
Christina Rossetti (1896)
Miniver Cheevy Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, Grew lean while he assailed the seasons; He wept that he was ever born, And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; The vision of a warrior bold Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, and rested from his labors; He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, And Priam’s neighbors.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown That made so many a name so fragrant; He mourned Romance, now on the town, And Art, a vagrant.
Miniver loved the Medici, Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly Could he have been one.
Miniver cursed the commonplace And eyed a khaki suit with loathing; He missed the mediæval grace Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought, But sore annoyed was he without it; Miniver thought, and thought, and thought, And thought about it.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late, Scratched his head and kept on thinking; Miniver coughed, and called it fate, And kept on drinking. Edwin Arlington Robinson (1910)
As you have seen in the examples so far, all of the minute elements that compose a poem work together to create a unified work, no matter what content or speaker you choose. No matter your subject or theme, it is essential to have all of the details settled before beginning. Once your ideas and words begin to flow more freely, you can take a looser approach to writing, but for now, start by determining your main ideas and other important particulars.
What Will You Write About?: Getting Started
Think of a topic for a poem you have not yet written. If your topic is an event or situation, what will happen in the poem? What are the surrounding events that may not come into play within the poem but that may directly affect the characters or events you will discuss? Who are your characters? How does each of them feel about what is taking place within the poem? Will one of them be the speaker, or will you use a third-person narrator who does not participate in the poem? Will your narrator be omniscient?
In the form of a list or a paragraph, write down as many details as you can think of that might be important to creating a believable poem. Try to respond to all of the above questions. Do not yet begin to create your verse; just write down everything that is important to what you will discuss and how you will discuss it. Try to include either a piece of dramatic or interior monologue, or a short soliloquy. Try to think of a rhetorical question that would be in some way pertinent to the ideas that will be expressed within the poem.
The Elements of a Well-Written Poem
Listing the criteria for a good poem can be a daunting enterprise. Nevertheless, there are some basic guidelines that many poets use when writing poetry. Although overly simplified, these guidelines should help you understand how a good poem is written.
Most readers of poetry agree that there are basic elements often found in a poem: image and discourse, rhythm, effective line breaks, figures of speech, word music, and formal structures. A good poem does not need to have all of these elements; in fact, the poem will probably have only one or two of the elements as major strengths. For instance, William Carlos Williams, one of our century’s greatest poets, used the image as his primary element, with the other elements supplementing it. Another great poet, Seamus Heaney, who has received the Nobel Prize, emphasizes strong rhythms and word music in his poems. Your poem, too, will probably be stronger in one or two of these elements—that’s natural.
Images speak to our senses, evoking a vivid, sensuous experience. Many images are visual, but they also evoke touch, taste, smell, and hearing. The function of images is to re-create the experience for the readers, so they will be able to put themselves into the experience rather than just “hearing” about it. One of the most common rules of poetry writing courses is to “Show, not tell.” In other words, don’t just say you had a good breakfast, tell the reader you ate a big bowl of cornflakes smothered with ripe blueberries, with sugar sprinkled on top!
Jeff Curtis, the Grand Prize Winner at the International Society of Poets' Florida Conference, 2001, in the third stanza of his poem, “Grandpa Died,” uses vivid images to help the reader understand the kind of man the speaker’s grandfather was:
He left a grey tackle box a handmade knife and some homemade sinkers but he left his hat on the rack and his glasses by the bed….
Discourse is the opposite of the image: it is a general, abstract statement that rarely evokes any sensory experience. In other words, it is usually an idea phrased in abstract terms. If discourse is to be effective, it must be precise and original phrasing; clichéd discourse will seriously weaken a poem.
Jessica Anthony’s poem, “A Recipe for an Episcopalian,” one of the International Library of Poetry's prize winners, uses strong, effective discourse in the fourth stanza, when she says:
I remember his Sunday sermons, Severe for a man who took such care With the leaves of tomatoes.
Her discourse is effective because it states one the main ideas of the poem, that the man has two sides, the gentle caretaker of tomatoes and the “severe” sermonizer.
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Rhythm is a fundamental element of a poem, for it provides the reader with the motion of the words as they string themselves across the page. As the great poet and teacher Robert Bly says, the rhythm of poetry—its recurring beat—is similar to the ancient rhythms of dance, our body music. The rhythm may be fixed or free; in either instance, however, there should be some underlying current that carries the reader along.
Fixed meter means a poem has an identifiable recurring pattern of sound, what we call beats. There are two kinds of beats, strong/stressed and weak/unstressed. Good metered poems use such patterns without being too “singsong.” For instance, the following metered poem has a pattern, but it’s rather singsong and clichéd:
We knów the snów is cóld, the ský is blúe and wét, but wé don’t knów who tóld the mán to ménd his nét.
We all know this poem is using an unstressed/stressed syllable count (called iambic meter), but the pattern sounds very mechanical. W.D. Snodgrass, who has received the Pulitzer Prize for his poetry, writes beautifully metered poems. Here are the first four lines of one of his famous poems, “April Inventory”:
The gréen catálpa trée has túrned All whíte; the chérry blóoms once móre. In óne whole yéar I háven’t leárned A bléssed thíng they páy you fór.
These lines have a steady pattern of unstressed/stressed syllables, yet the language seems natural, not mechanical. Please note . . . the rhymes seem natural; also, they do not “clang” too loudly at the ends of the lines.
Free rhythm is harder to explain because it does not count stressed or unstressed syllables; it just provides a pleasurable current of sound on which the words may flow. Poems may have short, jagged rhythms or they may have long, flowing rhythms; or, as is often the case, they may have both. A good poem will have lines that ebb and flow with a distinctive pacing, as do the lines in stanza two of Jeff Curtis’s poem, “Grandpa Died”:
He left me with his catfishing and his care of tools and a set of deer antlers on the wall but he forgot to take his glass of wine and ginger ale and his big hands around mine
Note how Jeff’s first and third lines flow out, long and leisurely, so the reader gets a sense of expansion, and then notice how he pulls the rhythm tighter, shorter, in lines two and four—this is a good example of the use of rhythm to create a “pace” in the poem.
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In general, metered poetry should not be too mechanical sounding, and free verse should have some underlying beat.
A poem, by definition, works in shorter lines than prose, so it is essential that a poem displays a sure sense of line breaks; that is, the poem should demonstrate that the poet knows why he or she ends the line as they do. Line breaks, along with rhythm, create the “stop” and “go” of a poem’s pacing. There are two ways to break a line—enjambment and end-stop—and they each have a greatly different effect.
Enjambment occurs when the poet “carries over” a clause or other grammatical unit from the preceding line. This means the sense of that line is not finished; the reader must go to the next line for completion. Thus, enjambment creates a sense of suspense (how will this line complete itself?) as well as flow (the reader is more anxious to get to the next line). Enjambment, then, typically creates a faster-paced rhythm, for the reader’s eye flows from line to line without interruption or end-stop.
Jacquelyn Z. de Bray, in her poem, “Leda and the Swan,” which was the Grand Prize Winner at the ISP's contest in Florida, 2002, uses enjambment well in her second stanza, after the speaker describes the experience of the swan descending on her:
Then the god is gone. Later what she remembers is A certain way of clasping A shivering across the back that stings.
The second line, “Later what she remembers is,” is a good enjambment because it makes the reader ask, “What does she remember?” and it thus propels the reader to the next line to find the answer. This line is also a good example of discourse, as noted above.
End-stop occurs when both meaning and rhythm pause at the end of the line. Usually there is end-punctuation (a comma, period, or some other form of punctuation), but that is not necessary. If the thought or image is complete unto itself, the line is end-stopped. Thus, end-stop “stops” the flow of the poem and makes the reader pause to consider the line, thus creating a slower-paced poem.
In the first line of Jacquelyn’s poem referred to above, we have a good example of end-stop: “Then the god is gone.” The reader must stop to let the impact of the line sink in—the god who visited the speaker has left, and his absence is marked with a definite pause.
Jeff Curtis’s poem, “Grandpa Died,” is an excellent example of end-stop throughout; in fact, each line is end-stopped, except for the penultimate line, “and the braid of garlic,” which flows to the end line.
According to Donald Hall, in his book To Read a Poem, figures of speech are extraordinary, original, non-literal uses of language common to lively speech and literature. The most common figure of speech in poetry is comparison making, and there are two forms: simile and metaphor.
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There are many good poems that do not use any figures of speech whatsoever, but most poems do. In order for such comparisons to be effective, however, the terms compared must be unique and original. If you wrote, “My love is like a red rose,” for instance, it would not be very original—many poets throughout the ages have used this simile and it has thus weakened. “He is tough as nails” and “She is sweet as sugar” are other examples of similes that, through time, have weakened because they are used often.
Maurice Gaerlan, in his poem, “Immigrant Smoking in the USA,” which was the Second Prize Winner at the International Society of Poets' convention in Washington, 2001, uses a strong, original metaphor when he says, in stanza three:
Besides me, three fellow countrymen speak Also with burning pencils between their fingers Attempting to trace their destiny in the sky….
Here, Maurice compares, through metaphor, the cigarettes with “burning pencils,” and thus the reader can see the men’s hand movements as a form of “writing.”
W.D. Snodgrass uses an original, effective simile in the second stanza of his poem, “Seeing You Have…”, where he compares a woman to prairie grass:
She’s like the tall grass, common, That sends roots, where it needs, Six feet into the prairies.
Direct rhyme is the most common form of word music in English poetry, which is the exact repetition in two or more words of the final vowel and consonants of a word; for example, late and date.
Strong poems have rhymes that flow naturally with the language; in other words, the rhyme word must not be there just because it rhymes, but because it seems the best word to use for the sense as well as the sound.
W.D. Snodgrass is one of our country’s premier rhyming poets because his language flows so naturally. Here are his four lines of poetry from “April Inventory,” which we mentioned earlier when discussing meter:
The green catalpa tree has turned All white; the cherry blooms once more. In one whole year I haven’t learned A blessed thing they pay you for.
This language is direct and natural sounding; it is not inverted or forced just to get the rhyme.
Some poets use indirect rhyme (off-rhyme, slant rhyme, near rhyme). This type of rhyme has the repetition of the vowel or consonant sound in the last words of lines, such as blaze/date (vowel repetition, or assonance) and gut/last (consonant repetition, or consonance). Contemporary American poets use indirect rhyme more often than direct rhyme because it is more subtle and sounds more like a natural voice speaking.
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Jeff Curtis, in lines four and five of his poem, “Grandpa Died,” uses indirect rhyme (consonance) by repeating the t consonant sound:
and he forgot to take the smell of his jacket and the sound of my name, the way he said it.
Repetitions of sounds do not occur only in the last words of lines, they also occur within the lines. Most good poetry will contain this musical quality. There are two types of word music that will help your language to “ring”: assonance and consonance.
Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound in words where the following consonant sounds do not repeat: for example, ride-night, glow-rode, raid-place, etc. When these repetitions occur in end-words (words at the ends of lines), they create assonantal (slant) rhymes. Assonance can also occur within lines, too, however.
Elma Photikarmbumrung, in her poem, “The River Kwai of Thailand,” has many lines that contain word music; here is one that uses the short e vowel sound with a subtle strength:
Until the river becomes a bed of precious gems.
Later in the poem she uses the short i vowel sound equally well:
In the baking sun and humid afternoon Destined to take a break, she plunges in the river for coolness and comfort.
C.A. Jennings-Blanchet, in her poem, “C Minor Seventh,” which was the Second Prize Winner at the ISP's convention in Florida, 2002, uses both the long e and short e vowel sound in just one line of her poem:
You reeked of Jim Beam steady nodding your head into a nap.
Such word music helps a poem to ring pleasure to the ear.
Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in words that do not repeat the preceding vowel sound; for example, flip-cap, black-knock, trees-miss, etc. Alliteration, which is the repetition of a consonant at the beginning of words within proximate distance, is a form of consonance. Jessica Anthony uses consonance well by repeating the s sound in the fourth stanza of her poem, “A Recipe for an Episcopalian”:
I remember his Sunday sermons, Severe for a man who took such care With the leaves of tomatoes.
Jeff Curtis, in the first stanza of his poem, “Grandpa Died,” uses the t consonant very well:
He left me with his roses and his black dirt garden with his tomatoes and lettuce
The Elements of a Well-Written Poem (Page 6)
and he forgot to take the smell of his jacket and the sound of my name, the way he said it.
The entire stanza rings with this t consonant sound, and it’s very appropriate, logically and musically, that the stanza’s last word has the t repeated.
If a poet writes a formal poem such as a sonnet, sestina, or villanelle, the poem should adhere to that form’s basic structure. A complete discussion of the many and varied formal structures for poems in English may be found in books such as Lewis Turco’s The New Book of Forms or Philip Dacey and David Jauss’s Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms.
We hope the guidelines explained and illustrated above help you to better understand the basic elements of a well-crafted poem. Again, it is impossible to exactly define what makes a good poem, but it is possible to show the qualities we find most often in such poems.
but he forgotto take our evenings in the kitchen together
What Is Poetry?
To define poetry in a single sentence would be almost impossible, for it is a broad term that encompasses verse ranging from the three-line haiku to the book-length epic. Throughout the ages, however, many poets have tried to define poetry as it relates to their own lives. The great poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge once wrote, “I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definition of prose and poetry; that is, prose—words in their best order; poetry—the best words in their best order.” While poetry relies greatly on word choice and word order, there are many other important aspects of the art form to take into consideration.
William Wordsworth chose to define poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Matthew Arnold also placed emphasis on the presence of emotion in poetry when he wrote that “genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.” Most of us would probably agree that great poetry often relies on its ability to expose our deepest and most intimate thoughts and feelings; but again, this still does not define poetry’s multifaceted nature or its many purposes. W. H. Auden described poetry as “memorable speech.” Poetry clearly has a way of leaving imprints on our minds, leaving us to ponder and bask in its truths and mystery, but to define all poetry solely as “memorable speech” might be inaccurate. To find a concrete definition for this term is indeed difficult.
Poets should consider their own definition of what poetry is; this will help them to understand what they value in poetry and what their goal will be in writing. For example, Coleridge’s goal was to focus on language, to find the best words and place them in the best order. Wordsworth wanted to display his most intense emotions in his verse. Perhaps a poet’s goal is a combination of all of the purposes mentioned above? It is important to remember that poetry is difficult to define and means different things to different poets; therefore, there is no one correct answer. Use any resources that are helpful to come up with ideas.
Consider the reasons that inspired this love and desire to write poetry. Reflect on the role poetry has in life. Think about how poetry differs from other written forms of expression. Consider memorable poems from the past. What is it about them that strikes a chord? By determining this, poets may be able to better understand what they value in poetry. Feel free
to research what famous poets may have said or written about the art of poetry. Listed below are additional quotations from other well-known poets. Perhaps their words will inspire a definition, but poets should not to rely on these quotes to speak for them.
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“Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.” —Carl Sandburg
“Poetry is all nouns and verbs.” —Marianne Moore
“Poetry is mostly hunches.” —John Ashberry
“Poetry is not the turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.” —T. S. Eliot
“Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” —Robert Frost
“Poetry—all of it—is a journey to the unknown.” —Vladimir Mayakovski
“I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste.” —Edgar Allan Poe
“Poetry is life distilled.” —Gwendolyn Brooks
Your Poetic Style: How Will You Tell Your Story?
Determining Form, Style, and Texture
The arrangement, manner, or method used to convey the content is called the form.
In other words, it is how you present your ideas or story.
Once you know what you want to say, you then need to determine the best way in which to say it—how you are going to put “the best words in their best order.” Would your content be best expressed through a poem that rhymes and has a particular rhythmic pattern? Would your topic work well within the rigid structure of a particular poetic form, or would it be better conveyed by verse that follows the natural rhythm of language? It is important to decide early on, very generally, the best way to present your content.
The poet’s style is his individual creative process, as determined by choices involving diction, figurative language, figures of speech, sounds, and rhythmic patterns.
All the decisions you make in your writing—from content to rhyme patterns, from form to word choice—will work together to create your personal style. The better you can learn to infuse your poetry with a unique view and feel, the more convincing your work will be. While a poet develops his style throughout his career over his entire body of work, we can still determine the elements of style that he may have used in one particular poem.
Texture is the “feel” of a poem that comes from the interweaving of technical elements, syntax, patterns of sound, and meaning.
The texture of your work will vary from poem to poem, depending on the stylistic decisions you make with each piece of your writing. However, this varying texture is part of your personal style. Different poetic rules will dictate the way that certain types of poetry must be structured; however, the elements that create the texture of your poetry, and thus your personal style, are entirely up to you. The texture depends on your ideas and the language that you use to express them, how you choose to arrange each word in your poem so that it is most meaningful, so its sound is most effective, and so its role in a phrase is intentional and well thought-out.
Determining the Basic Composition
Now that you have thought about how poems are created from the spark of an initial idea or inspiration, read the following poem. Write a paragraph about the basic content—what the poem is about—and the style of the poem. First discuss the content, or what is being said in the poem. Secondly, consider the way in which the poet approached writing about her subject, including some general discussion of her form. For example, does the poem rhyme? Are there noticeable patterns of rhyme or rhythm? Is the flow of the poem similar to prose or how we speak? Finally, think about the style of her writing, how she uses language, and what kind of language she uses.
Madonna of the Evening Flowers All day long I have been working, Now I am tired. I call: “Where are you?” But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind. The house is very quiet, The sun shines in on your books, On your scissors and thimble just put down, But you are not there. Suddenly I am lonely: Where are you? I go about searching.
Your Poetic Style: How Will You Tell Your Story? (Page 2)
Then I see you, Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur, With a basket of roses on your arm. You are cool, like silver, And you smile. I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.
You tell me that the peonies need spraying, That the columbines have overrun all bounds, That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded. You tell me these things. But I look at you, heart of silver, White heart-flame of polished silver, Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur, And I long to kneel instantly at your feet, While all about us peal the loud, sweet Te Deums of the Canterbury bells. Amy Lowell (1919)
Advanced Poetic Techniques: Making the Connection with Langauge
In poetry, language is the key to grabbing a reader's attention. If a poem's language is predictable, archaic, too vague, or too complex, a reader will lose interest. Many novice poets make the mistake of believing that all poetry must be difficult to understand, and thus must contain nothing but "big" words. Other new poets, many of whom are best acquainted with poetry written centuries ago, resort to using the archaic language of Shakespeare and his peers. Also, novice poets often fall into the trap of using unimaginative or nonsensical language because it fits easily into a preset pattern of rhyme. We will attempt to refocus these types of mentalities and attitudes about language in the following section. For our purposes, language will be broken down into three areas: concrete, connotative, and denotative.
Concrete Language
Too often, new poets use language that is so vague that the reader cannot decipher the poem's meaning. Along the same lines, those poets will sometimes speak of events in terms that only the poet and a close circle of the poet's friends or family could possibly understand; the work loses the universal quality necessary to make the leap from mere musing to poetry, becoming something of an inside joke. This mistake can be avoided through the use of concrete language.
Concrete language points to actual events or facts as opposed to abstractions.
Abstract language can be the downfall of any piece of writing. For example, the statement "He likes her very much" is very vague—we do not know to whom the pronouns "he" or "her" refer, nor do we know how much is "very much." Even the verb "like" lacks any sort of description that might help us to understand the situation. However, if we rephrase the same sentence, adding concrete details about the people and the circumstances, it becomes much easier to imagine the scenario: "Prince Charming's passion for Cinderella transcends mere affection and, in fact, borders on obsession."
The best method of introducing concrete language into your poetry is to start with your verbs. Verbs such as am, are, is, was, were, be, and been lack an element that intrigues readers. These verbs, while they do have their place in writing, are overused. Their popularity is due, in large part, to the fact that such verbs have broad meanings and allow us to communicate our thoughts with the least amount of time and effort. Poetry, however, moves beyond simple communication. As a poet, you should seek out language that not only conveys your ideas, but also captures your reader's imagination; to capture a reader's imagination you must employ active verbs. In other words, you cannot do or sense is or be, whereas you can do and sense whisper or skip. It is difficult for a reader to visualize the event or events occurring in a poem if the verbs are not active. Poetry is an art form—paint a picture with your words.
Advanced Poetic Techniques: Making the Connection with Langauge (Page 2)
Passive verbs use in their construction the helping verb to be. The subject of sentences written in passive voice is not the doer of the action but the recipient of the action. Often, the doer of the action is not mentioned in the sentence. Active verbs are more specific because the doer of the action is the subject of the sentence. They also inject action into your sentences. You should avoid passive verbs as much as possible because they are much more vague than active verbs.
For example: "The bell was rung" is in passive voice. "The monk rang the bell" is in active voice. "The leaf was blown off the tree by the wind" is in passive voice. "The wind blew the leaf off the tree" is in active voice.
Try replacing the unexciting am, are, is, was, were, be, and been with stronger active verbs, or try reconstructing your sentences to remove forms of to be. By using concrete language, verbs in particular, you will create a more vivid image in your readers' minds. Using concrete verbs and synonyms in place of lackluster nouns and adjectives also allows you to say one thing in many different ways. Instead of just going to the store, you can amble, careen, lumber, or trudge to the store. Concrete language will allow you to remove adjectives and adverbs from your poetry and replace them with more precise nouns and verbs. Rather than writing about a red bird, you can write about a cardinal; you can like someone a lot, or you can adore, idolize, revere, or worship that same person.
Using concrete language is the first step in creating imagery. Imagery is used to elicit strong sensory reactions in your reader. A word like "speak" does not call to the reader's mind an image and emotion as clear and powerful as a word like "lecture" or "berate." When striving to create memorable imagery, concrete language is an invaluable tool.
Consider the following poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Notice how Tennyson builds not only the images in the poem, but also the message and theme of the poem almost entirely through the use of active verbs:
The Charge of the Light Brigade Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!" he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred. Flashed all their sabers bare, Flashed as they turned in air Sab'ring the gunners there, Charging an army, while
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All the world wondered. Plunged in the battery smoke Right through the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reeled from the saber stroke Shattered and sundered. Then they rode back, but not, Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell. They that had fought so well Came through the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honor the charge they made! Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred! Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1854)
Knowing words that are similar to the words you use in your poetry can also be an asset. If you are searching for more concrete and exciting language to use in your poetry, consider a synonym.
A synonym is a word that is close in meaning to another word. For example: "Puissant" is a synonym for "powerful." "Curt" is a synonym for "brief."
If, for instance, you were writing a poem about the color of the ocean, it would be beneficial to know several adjectives that are similar to the adjective "blue." Simply repeating the word "blue" over and over again will become boring. On the other hand, substituting "blue" with synonyms like "cerulean," "aqua," and "indigo" adds diversity to the poem's language while retaining the essential meaning of the poem. When looking for a synonym for a word, be sure to use a word that is the same part of speech; you would not want to substitute a noun for a verb.
Avoiding vague, unexciting language is another big step toward writing good poetry. However, all of your creative and concrete language will be for naught if that same language falls into a poetic time warp. Novice poets often make the mistake of using anachronisms in their poetry.
An anachronism is something that belongs in another, most often earlier, time period.
Using words like "hast" and "thine," or adding -th or -st to the end of a verb (forsaketh, speaketh, goest) are examples of anachronisms. Do not fall into the trap of using these types of words because you feel they will enhance your poetry. Yes, Shakespeare, Milton, and their contemporaries may have made extensive use of this type of language, but you should not. Remember, these words were part of everyday speech in Shakespeare's time. You should use modern language, not the outdated language of long-dead poets. No one says "thy" anymore; using this and other anachronistic words in your poetry will make your poem less.
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"Big" words or overblown language can have the same effect on a poem that archaic or anachronistic language has. There is nothing wrong with using uncommon vocabulary words in your poetry, but make certain these words are integral to your poem and not merely ornamental. Why say "homo sapiens" when "humans" will do just as well? What is the purpose of saying you were "interfacing" when you were actually "chatting"? Also, be sure that you are using your vocabulary correctly. For example, not every word can act as a noun, an adjective, and a verb. One's college days may be full of "strife," but one cannot be "strifing" for a higher education. Similarly, do not confuse the meaning of words that sound the same, such as "strive" (to try hard) and "strife" (bitter conflict). Don't be afraid to look up a word in your dictionary, even if you think you know the word's meaning. Nothing can compromise the integrity of your poetry quicker than a word used incorrectly.
There are a few good rules and questions to which you may want to refer when considering the type of language you will use in your poem:
Poetry is an art form that thrives on an economy of language. Every word in a poem should be essential to the poem's meaning; if the word is extraneous, take it out.
Do you truly understand the meaning of the word? If not, it is probably best not to use it.
If you are only somewhat sure of a word's meaning, look up the definition of the word in your dictionary. If, after consulting your dictionary, you are still uncertain about the word's meaning, use a different word—one with which you are more familiar.
Why do you want to use this word? Does it enhance the poem's meaning or add to the poem's rhythm?
Once you have followed the above guidelines, if you still feel that your humdinger of a word belongs in your poem, then use it. There is nothing wrong with trying out an uncommon word; sometimes you find that such a word truly embodies or complements the message or meaning of your poem. In that case, however, be aware that some readers may not "get" what you are trying to say right away. But after all, that's what dictionaries are for.
Denotative and Connotative Language Besides using more concrete language, understanding denotation and connotation is also essential to enhancing your mastery of poetic language. Whereas concrete language indicates the use of simple, active verbs and specific, rather than vague or abstract, descriptions, denotation and connotation describe the meaning and the emotions evoked by certain language.
Denotation is the literal meaning of a word; it is the "dictionary definition" of a word.
Connotation is the meaning suggested by a word, outside of its literal meaning or definition.
For example: The denotation of the word "black" is an absence of color. The connotation of "black" is something that is bad or sinister.
The denotation of the word "spring" is the season following winter, during which many plants experience regrowth. The connotation of "spring" is new life or youth.
Next Week-Advanced Poetic Techniques: Making the Connection with Language (Page 5)
Advanced Poetic Techniques: Making the Connection with Language (Page 5)
Relying on the connotations of words can help give your poem depth. While your writing should form specific and precise images and narration, you should choose your words carefully, keeping in mind the subtle nuances of particular words. Read the following lines:
Her cheeks glow with the color of ripe peaches Her lips wear a deep scarlet hue Her hair echoes the shade of a sunflower But her eyes bore into mine with a steely stare
In the first three lines of the above stanza, we assemble a vivid picture of a beautiful woman. The words like "glow," "ripe peaches," "scarlet," "hue," "echoes," "shade," and "sunflower" all suggest the splendor of nature that the persona sees reflected in the woman. These words all have positive connotations that bring to mind beauty and perfection. However, in the final line, "bore" and "steely stare" suggest (or connote) anger and coldness. While that last line says that she is looking into the persona's eyes, the word choice gives additional meaning to the statement. Changing some of those words will give the stanza an entirely different meaning:
Her cheeks burn with the red of a lobster Her lips are painted with Pepto-Bismol Her hair is the color of a dandelion But her eyes penetrate mine with an alluring gaze
This version of the stanza provides an equally vivid description of the woman, but one that is less flattering. Comparing her to a lobster wearing lipstick the opaque pink color of Pepto-Bismol and with hair "the color of a dandelion" leaves the reader feeling repelled by her appearance. A lobster has a hard carapace and dangerous claws; Pepto-Bismol is a medication taken when one feels ill; and dandelions are weeds. The negative connotations of
these words allow the reader to empathize with the persona's opinion of the woman. However, the contrast in the last line tells us that, despite the woman's appearance, she still successfully attracts the persona. Her "alluring gaze" makes her more appealing than the woman in the original stanza.
A thesaurus can be extremely helpful in finding words with similar denotations. However, when choosing your words, be sure to consider the connotations that may not be explicitly indicated in a thesaurus. For instance, if you look up the word "child" in the thesaurus, you may find words like "offspring," "descendant," and "progeny," all of which have positive connotations. You may also see words with negative connotations, like "spawn" or "brat." You should choose your synonym wisely, using its connotation to add further meaning to your poem.
Understanding and manipulating denotation and connotation will be major assets to your skill as a poet. As Robert Frost once said, "Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another." Denotation and connotation are the media through which you can achieve the double meaning of which Frost spoke.
Because of the strong feelings that are often elicited by a word's connotation, certain words become symbolic; the words represent the emotions they embody. Symbolism is often so closely connected to a word's connotation as to sometimes emerge from that connotation.
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Symbols are found throughout poetry and literature. For instance, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," an albatross, a symbol of good luck, is killed by the ship's captain. Thereafter, bad fortune follows the captain, resulting in the destruction of his ship and the death of all those aboard. Had Coleridge stated outright that the captain did not appreciate his blessings, the poem would be less effective. The symbolic albatross creates a more engaging poem, whose meaning is not so obvious as to be insulting and not so hidden as to be confounding.
A well-placed symbol can add depth and intrigue to your poetry. But you must be careful when using symbolic language in your verse. Too many symbols or ones that are too obscure will cloud the meaning of your poem, not enhance it.
Two of the most famous symbolic poems are Robert Frost's "The Road Less Traveled" and John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," which appears below. Frost uses the diverging pathway as a symbol for the directions our lives take and for the decisions that lead us in those directions. Keats's use of symbolism, however, is more complex than Frost's. In "Ode on a Grecian Urn," the sculptured relief of an ancient Greek village scene symbolizes the somewhat unattainable nature of beauty. As the poem's persona points out, the two lovers sculpted on the urn will be forever blissfully frozen in the moment just before their kiss, so that kiss will never be realized.
Ode on a Grecian Urn Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
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O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. John Keats (1820)
The following poem by Thomas Hardy relies heavily upon the connotation and the denotation of his language, as well as the use of symbolism. "The Darkling Thrush" can be read from a literal (denotative) point of view or a symbolic and emotional (connotative) point of view.
Consider both the denotation and the connotation of winter, the forest, the bird, and the bird's song in Hardy's poem:
The Darkling Thrush I leant upon a coppice gate Where Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon the earth Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; And aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware. Thomas Hardy (1901)
Advanced Poetic Techniques: Figures of Speech and Sound
Now that you have an understanding of the three types of language essential to poetry, we can discuss the more advanced forms of poetic figures of speech. These forms will extensively employ your knowledge of denotation and connotation. You may find that these figures of speech, when used in the right place and in the right amount, will add a greater depth of meaning and a more universal quality to your poetry.
The following poetic techniques or figures of speech rely heavily on juxtaposition (the close placement of opposing ideas for the purpose of comparison). These methods juxtapose a word's denotation and connotation or two or more words with seemingly opposite meanings.
A pun is a word or phrase, sometimes referred to as a "play on words," that suggests multiple meanings or interpretations.
For example: Spiders really bug me. "Guilty," the judge said with conviction.
Because puns often add an element of humor to a poem, they are commonly found in light and comic verse. However, they may also be used with a more serious intent. The last stanza of John Donne's "A Hymn to God the Father" provides an excellent example of this type of serious pun:
A Hymn to God the Father Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which is my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more.
Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I have won Others to sin? And made my sin their door? Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two, but wallowed in a score? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; Swear by thy self, that at my death thy Son Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore; And, having done that, thou hast done, I fear no more. John Donne (1633)
Donne plays upon the dual meaning of the word "Son." In this poem, "Son" refers both to the Son of God and to the sun that sheds light upon the Earth. Because the words "son" and "sun" are homophones, Donne's pun is subtle and effective.
A homophone is a word that has the same in sound as another word but differs in spelling and meaning.
For example: "Pair" as in a set of two, and "pear" as in an edible fruit.
Closely related to the homophone both in definition and use is the homonym.
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A homonym is a word that has the same sound and the same spelling as another word but differs in meaning.
For example: "Fall" as in to stumble, and "fall" as in autumn.
Synonyms, homonyms, and homophones all touch upon similarities between words. However, the quality of your language is also enhanced by understanding words' converse meanings.
An antonym is a word with a meaning opposite that of another word.
For example: "Hot" is an antonym for "cold." "Aggressive" is an antonym for "passive."
If you are writing about unrequited love, for example, it would be helpful to know the opposite of "adore." Judge for yourself which line has a greater impact:
I adore her, yet she still doesn't care for me. or
I adore her, yet she still despises me.
While "doesn't care for" is dissimilar in meaning to "adore," it is "despise" whose meaning is most opposite to "adore"; therefore the impact of the second line is greater.
The use of antonyms also provides an alternative to the overuse of negative words and phrases, such as "cannot" and "do not." These words and phrases become boring and repetitious, not to mention detrimental to the rhythm of your poem. Moreover, the overuse of "cannot," "do not," and similar words or phrases impacts heavily upon the tone of your poem, shifting from optimism to pessimism. For a more positive effect, it is better to say, "She is gregarious," or "She is outgoing," rather than, "She is not shy."
Understanding antonyms is also essential to understanding another important and useful poetic figure of speech—the oxymoron.
An oxymoron usually consists of two words that are contradictory or incongruous, but whose surprising juxtaposition expresses a truth or has a dramatic effect.
Deafening silence" is a commonly used oxymoron. "Silence" suggests total quiet, yet "deafening" suggests loud noise. The juxtaposition of these two words conveys to the reader that the silence is unbearable, that the silence makes an impact as strong as, if not stronger than, words.
A fine example of the oxymoron can be found in John Milton's masterpiece, Paradise Lost. In the following brief excerpt, Milton describes Hell:
At once, as far as angels ken, he views The dismal situation waste and wild: A dungeon horrible, on all sides round As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible
We find an example of oxymoron in the final line of this excerpt. Darkness, by nature, is a lack of light, and is thus invisible. Yet the persona claims just the opposite—that darkness is visible. Additionally, the flames are described in terms of this darkness, as opposed to light. This darkness is, of course, figurative. Milton uses this oxymoron, "darkness visible," to emphasize the hopelessness and depravity of Hell.
Similar in nature to the oxymoron is the paradox, another important figure of speech.
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A paradox is a statement that contains seemingly contradictory elements or appears contradictory to common sense, yet can be true when viewed from another angle.
Whereas an oxymoron is a flat-out contradiction, a paradox only appears contradictory. The following poem by Emily Dickinson makes a paradox its central focus:
435 Much Madness is the divinest Sense— To a discerning Eye— Much Sense—the starkest Madness— 'Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail— Assent—and you are sane— Demur—you're straightaway dangerous— And handled with a Chain— Emily Dickinson (1890)
How is it that to be mad, or insane, is to have much sense, and to have sense is to be mad? This is the paradox Dickinson presents to the reader. By the poem's end, the reader sees the truth in her words: To always take the route considered sensible by the majority is madness. Similarly, to follow one's own desires, although the majority may view them as mad, is sensible, contends Dickinson.
Yet another figure of speech that juxtaposes words or thoughts is antithesis.
Antithesis is a figure of speech in which a thought is balanced with a contrasting thought in a parallel grammatical arrangement.
Several examples of antithesis can be found in this excerpt from Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock:
But since, alas! frail beauty must decay, Curled or uncurled, since locks will turn to gray; Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade, And she who scorns a man must die a maid; What then remains but well our power to use, And keep good humor still whate'er we lose?
Antithesis is clear in the phrases "curled or uncurled," and "painted, or not painted." Antithesis is also found, however, in the phrases "frail beauty must decay" and "she who scorns a man must die a maid." Pope contrasts the concept of beauty with its antithesis, decay. Likewise, he contrasts the sought-after young woman with her opposite, the old maid.
The following figure of speech is one with which you should be well acquainted. Euphemisms like "beautician" and "flight attendant" have become part of our everyday speech.
A euphemism is the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that might offend or suggest something unpleasant.
For example: "Under the weather" is a euphemism for "sick."
Using euphemisms in poetry is tricky. By nature, a euphemism softens the impact of a word's meaning. Saying someone "passed away" may not have the same impact upon a reader as saying someone died. If you want to emphasize that a character in your poem is deaf, you may want to avoid using the euphemism "hearing-impaired." On the other hand, using the euphemism "companion" instead of the word "pet" emphasizes the emotional value of one's dog or cat over its status as a subordinate animal.
Another common technique in poetry is the allusion. Numerous poets use allusion to refer to other works of literature and historical events or figures in their own verse.
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Allusion is a direct or implied reference to something or someone, usually involving another work of art, a historical event, or a myth.
In the last lines of the following poem by Oscar Wilde, the poet makes allusions to biblical events:
Hélas To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelay, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance— And must I lose a soul's inheritance? Oscar Wilde (1881)
In the final three lines of "Hélas," Wilde makes an allusion to Moses. Just as the persona in "Hélas" touches the "honey of romance" with a "little rod" and is thus denied "a soul's inheritance," Moses is denied entrance to the Promised Land when he strikes a rock with his staff in order to obtain water for his people.
Figures of Sound
In addition to figures of speech, another way to enhance the language of your poetry is to use figures of sound.
A figure of sound conveys and reinforces the meaning or experience of poetry through the skillful use of sound.
While some are considered unusual modes of expression, when used to their fullest potential, figures of sound not only deepen and clarify meaning, but also strengthen the effect you desire from your poem. The following figures of sound highlight some of the best tools used to provoke thought through the use of sound.
Figures of sound generally refer to the quality of sound produced by a word or group of words. In the case of alliteration, assonance, and consonance, however, it is the individual sounds of the letters within the words that are used to create a desired sound effect.
Alliteration is the repetition of the initial sounds (usually consonants) of stressed syllables in neighboring words or at short intervals within a line or passage.
For example: "Full fathom five thy father lies . . ." (William Shakespeare) "Were we not weaned till then?" (John Donne)
Assonance is the relatively close juxtaposition in a line or passage of the same or similar vowel sounds, but with different end consonants. Assonance is sometimes called "vowel rhyme."
For example: "DATE" and "FADE" "LOVING" and "OTHER"
Consonance is the close repetition of the same consonants of stressed syllables, especially at the end of words, with differing vowel sounds.
For example: "BOAT" and "NIGHT" "LAUGH" and "GRUFF"
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You can create alliteration, assonance, and consonance by focusing on the sounds of particular letters and how those sounds create rhythm and rhyme between two or three words. However, the figures of sound that follow require an attention to the poem as a whole in order to achieve a desired sound effect. Furthermore, because these figures of sound rely upon the complete poem, rather than upon small parts of the poem, their impact upon the poem's tone and the meaning is great.
Dissonance, or cacophony, is a mingling or union of harsh, inharmonious sounds that are grating to the ear.
For example: "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." (Carl Sandburg)
Sandburg employed dissonance to accentuate the dissimilar nature of particular words, "hyacinth" and "biscuit," thus expressing how poetry can consist of elements that are vastly different from each other. However, dissonance is more commonly used to create a disturbing or tumultuous atmosphere. If you wanted to convey a sense of confusion or bewilderment in your poetry, dissonance would be an effective technique to use. Dissonance is also used to complement a disturbing event or situation in poetry. For instance, dissonance may be employed when describing a car crash or a lightning storm.
The term most opposite in meaning to dissonance is euphony. While dissonance refers to unpleasant or inharmonious sounds, euphony refers to pleasing sound effects.
Euphony is the harmony or beauty of a sound that provides a pleasing effect to the ear. It is achieved not only by the selection of individual word sounds, but also by their relationship in the repetition, proximity, and flow of sound patterns. Euphony therefore occurs in passages or in entire poems and not merely in individual words.
Vowels generally have a more pleasing sound than do consonants, and vowels that cause a rounded mouth when pronounced (such as those sounds made by u and o) provide the most harmonious and musical sounds. Consonants with a liquid sound (l, m, n, r, y, w) add to the euphony of a poem. When attempting to write euphony, avoid harsh and discordant sounds. Any repetition of words that end in clipped sounds (b, d, k, p, t, and x) will detract from your euphony and will create a staccato effect. Similarly, the repetition of words that begin with explosive sounds (b, c, f, g, j, k, p, q, t, and v) will detract from your euphony. We call the selection and arranged repetition of explosive and staccato sounds dissonance, or cacophony.
Resonance is the prolongation of sound through repetition and/or reverberation.
Resonance, through its repetition, creates a smooth, comforting rhythm. Thus, unlike dissonance, resonance is often employed in poetry to emphasize a sense of peacefulness and contentment, or even complacency.
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To create resonance, you will want to use words that end in prolonged sounds. Such a word will create a physical resonance when spoken. For example, if you say the word "hum" in a drawn-out way, lingering on the m sound at the word's end, you will feel a vibration in your hard palate (the roof of your mouth). With some vocal experimentation, you can learn which sounds (l, m, n, r) will produce this slight vibration. You can also achieve resonance by using words that end in a prolonged breathy sound (f, v) or in a sibilant (hissing) sound (soft c, s, z, sh). You will want to select, arrange, and repeat these resonant sounds throughout your poem.
The following poem by William Butler Yeats employs repetition, end rhyme, consonance, and assonance to create both resonance and euphony:
The Lake Isle of Innisfree I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon's a purple glow, And the evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core. William Butler Yeats (1890)
Repetition of words or phrases is one of the most common poetic techniques used to create both resonance and euphony. Furthermore, repetition places emphasis on select words or phrases. Dating back to the earliest works of poetry and perfected in the Greek choruses, repetition is still a widely used and effective poetic figure of sound.
A refrain is a line or more, generally important to the central topic, that is repeated word for word, usually at regular intervals throughout a poem.
You may have heard the term "refrain" used when referring to songs. While it is used more often in music than in modern poetry, that does not in any way discount its effect. In some traditional forms of poetry, the refrain is an important part of the poem used to emphasize the central theme or general message that the poet wanted to convey. While these refrains can appear anywhere in the poem, they most often appear at the ends of stanzas. We see the refrain featured prominently in this traditional English folksong:
Summer Is Icumen In Summer is coming in!
Sing loud, cuckoo! Grow the seed and blow the flowers in the meadow, And revive the woods now. Sing, cuckoo!
The ewe bleats after the lamb, Lows after the calf cow. The bull jumps faster than the wind. Merrily sing, cuckoo! Cuckoo! cuckoo! Sing you, cuckoo. May you never stop now.
Sing cuckoo now! Sing cuckoo! Sing cuckoo now! Sing cuckoo! (One repeats this as many times as necessary, making a pause at the end.) Anon. (13th century)
Advanced Poetic Techniques: Figures of Speech and Sound (Page 7)
Refrains typically appear word for word throughout the poem. However, there are variations of refrain, which provide more versatility in their usage. A refrain can vary in the middle of the line, while beginning and ending the same. Further variations have different names.
Anaphora is a variation of refrain that uses the repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases for rhetorical or poetic effect.Notice the anaphora in the following sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:Sonnet 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850)
Epistrophe is a variation of refrain that uses the repetition of a word or expression at the ends of successive phrases or verses.
Initially, epistrophe may appear the same as refrain. Epistrophe, however, need not be repeated word for word like a refrain. Also, while both refrain and epistrophe aid in developing a poem's theme, epistrophe is not a poetic device borne out of song; the tone of epistrophe is often more serious than that of a refrain.
The following poem by George Herbert provides an excellent example of epistrophe:Virtue Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky: The dew shall weep thy fall tonight, For thou must die:
Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye: Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My music shows ye have your closes, And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives. George Herbert (c.1633)
Both anaphora and epistrophe place emphasis upon the repeated words or phrases, thus reinforcing both the rhythm and the sentiment expressed in those phrases. In Browning's sonnet, undying love and devotion is the message reinforced through her use of the anaphora, "I love thee. . . ." Herbert's use of epistrophe in his repetiton of "thou must die" reinforces the theme of life's ephemeral nature. Moreover, because the sobering sentiment expressed in the epistrophe is in sharp contrast to the sweet, flowery images depicted in the lines that proceed it, Herbert successfully creates a jarring juxtaposition of outlooks on life.
Onomatopoeia is in a figure of sound category all its own—onomatopoeia is a sound.
Advanced Poetic Techniques: Figures of Speech and Sound (Page 8)
Onomatopoeia is the formation or use of words that imitate sounds, or any word whose sound is suggestive of its meaning.
For example: BANG, TICKTOCK, SLURP, and SHUSH
Onomatopoeia is much like a musical instrument—it is used to create a specific sound. Words like "crash," "boom," and "crack" create dissonant, even violent sounds, whereas "swish" and "whoosh" create soft, breezy noises. The following excerpt from the poem "What the Motorcycle Said" by Mona Van Duyn relies heavily upon onomatopoeia:
Br-r-r-am-m-m, rackety-am-m, OM, Am: All-r-r-oom, r-r-ram, ala-bas-ter— Am, the world's my oyster
Be aware of the impact that onomatopoeia has on your poem. Due to its nature, the reader's eyes and the listener's ears are drawn to onomatopoeia. Therefore, if your aim is to depict a quiet morning scene, you may want to avoid descriptions of "crackling branches." It is also important to note that too much onomatopoeia can start to sound childlike, even comical. Use this poetic device sparingly, only when and where an attention-grabbing sound device is merited.
In using figures of sound, it is very important to repeat an element for a reason. Do not use sounds randomly, as they will most likely conflict with your subject. For instance, you should not repeat the letter t numerous times in a soothing poem like a lullaby. Similarly, the letter s would not be appropriate as a repeated element in a poem about machine-gun fire.
