Poetic Techniques for Sound Imagery

If you haven't done so already, please read Mary Oliver's explanation of key sound devices: alliteration, assonance, consonance, & onomatopoeia. This can be found in the article we read in class on Thursday. Make sure you learn and know these techniques by heart!

After reading Mary Oliver's discussion about SOUND, please look at the following links (you may use your headphones). For each, try to notice sound imagery, rhythm and cadence. On your index card, please identify some of the sound devices you noticed working in these poems. Turn in your index card for participation credit at the end of class today.

Poems to listen to:

• Wallace Stevens: The Emperor of Ice Cream
• Mary Oliver: The Summer Day
• Mary Oliver: Wild Geese
• Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee
• Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven

For those of you who have completed this part of the assignment, please move on to the information below. Please make sure you read and take notes about CADENCE GROUPS and SOUND techniques detailed in the post below this one. You will be expected to know these terms and this vocabulary. We will have a test on these sound techniques and rhythm terms from "The Line" chapter on Wednesday.

Writing activity: Compose another first draft of a new poem where you use specific sound devices. Call this draft one. The assignment is SOUND.

Having trouble getting started? Try one of these brainstorms in your journal.

• Choose a letter from the alphabet. List associated words that begin with this letter. Don't try to make sense, but trust your instincts. Rearrange the list into a tongue twister. Write as many tongue twisters in your journal as you need to. Share your tongue twister with a friend.
• Choose a letter from the alphabet. List associated words that do NOT begin with this letter, but that the letter is present in the body of the word. Ex. little, brittle, shuttle all have "tt" in the word, creating consonance. Write a tongue twister by combining consonance, assonance AND alliteration.
• Make a list of rhyming words. Write a song or sappy greeting card poem with the words.
• With a partner try the following to create new words: WRITER ONE starts by whispering or saying the prefix or first part of a word. WRITER TWO finishes the word by naming the root or suffix of the proposed sound. Ex. Writer One: Shh; Writer Two: Uut. The word together: shut. Record a few of these in your notebook/journal.
• Make two columns in your journal. In one column list common nouns or adjectives: ex. house, rock, green. On the next column, write a different word that means the same thing: ex. hut, stone, beryl. Note how the different word has a different sound and therefore feeling to it.
• The _____ goes: (insert sound here). We all know a cat goes meow, but what does a pine tree sound like? How about a fence? or a goldfish? Being poetic, play around with the sound of inanimate objects and animals that are not traditionally found on a speak-n-spell. Ex. The rollerskate goes shkurrrr. Make a list of these onomatopoeia. 

Once you have brainstormed a bit, select a topic or subject. Write about this subject using poetic sound devices. You may find it easier to write what you want to say first, then replace words on purpose to create alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, onomatopoeia, etc. Good luck!

Turn in your draft by the end of class if finished.

More sound poems (these by Dr. Seuss...have fun):

• Tweedle Beetle Battle by Dr. Seuss
• Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss
• Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss
• Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You by Dr. Seuss
• And because it's good for you: the Lorax (part one) and part two.

And some adult poetry:

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Now you know all about onomatopoeia, assonance, consonance, alliteration, and rhyme (usually referred to as end rhyme). But there is also slant rhyme (near rhyme), internal rhyme, meter, rhythm, repetition, and caesura that creates sound imagery in a poem. Related to this are the literary terms: tone, voice, syntax, depitation, euphemism, understatement, sarcasm, and diction. We will discuss these less obvious techniques next class.