 15 Minute Adjustment:
Revising Poetry
Copyright ©2010 by Jan Wood
This is the eighth in a series of short articles in which Poet Laureate Jan Wood shares valuable tips for poets.
Poetry is for the Ear (Part 1)
Why:
In poetry there is an obligation to please the ear. Poetry is full of sound clusters.
Quick Check:
Walter de la Mare employs several of the sound techniques that create clusters in his poem, "Silver,"
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
1. Alliteration: the repetition of the initial letter of words in short sequences. In this sample, the letter "S" is the initial consonant in several words (slowly, silently, silver, shoon)
2. Rhyme: two or more words corresponding in sound usually the end sound. In this sample, the two words ‘moon’ and ‘shoon’ rhyme and the letters “o-o-n” are repeated at the end of each of them.
3. Sound Quality: appears in the careful choices of the sounds letters make in words creating harshness or softness. In this sample the softer sounds of the “w’s”, “n’s” and “l’s” draw the lines out and slow them down.
Read the following aloud. Let your ears create the soundscapes.
The repetition of consonant sounds:
Turn the air cinnamon,
Sandalwood ? autumn shadows climb
these walls, then shivers of smoke waver like starlight,
laughing flames whisper:
Winter is riding the wind
(from "We Light Red Candles" by Paula Jane Remlinger)
The harsh “ck” repetition:
Fate…poised for the knockout; hurled his brute attack,
?and suddenly was lying on his back?
“Nine – ten!” the slow words came like punctured hopes—
(from "The Knockout" by Stephen Vincent Benet)
The clipped crispness:
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
(from “The Eagle” by Alfred Lord Tennyson)
What:
Rhyme is one of the patterns made by stressed and unstressed words. It is important to keep a tight control on it so that it does not over power the poem or interfere with the poem's quality.
In the following examples controlled rhyme enhances the poem:
1. lisa b.’s spoken word poem “salvaged music” is an energy of sound. Rhyme and meter propel the words forward adding an element that does not disrupt the message. In the excerpt below note her manipulations of sound that emphasize the flow of the poem:
but the mop was left behind until one day,
picked up from the pile with a metal wash basin
and a length of cord she was sanded silky smooth
and painted red, dusted with silver glitter, cord strung …
and then she was elated, reincarnated as a thumping washtub bass taking her place with people playing spoons
on dented pots… and she gave thanks for the dumb luck
that had landed her in a dump truck
Trace the rhyme: elated, reincarnated; bass, place; dumb luck, dump truck
Trace the "S" sound from "basin" to "she has sanded silky smooth."
Trace the "P" sound from "mop picked pile" to "her place with people playing pots and spoons"
Trace the ‘A’ long vowel sound through day, basin, painted, elated, reincarnated, bass, taking, place, gave,
2. In “The Cremation of Sam McGee” Robert Service employs the use of internal and external rhyme. The extra rhyme slides the poem along and Service pulls the reader just as effectively as the huskies in the poem pull the sleigh.
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid,
and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb,
in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight,
while
the huskies, round in a ring,
howled out their woes to the homeless snows—
O God! how I loathed that thing!
Exercise:
Choose one of your poems that you would like to revise for sound quality. Read it silently, then read it aloud. Pay attention to the sounds. Note which techniques you have employed. Try to edit words to form sound clusters.
Bliss Carman: Canadian Poet
•
was born in New Brunswick and after graduation he studied in Edinburgh and later attended Harvard.
•
He worked a decade as an editor and a journalist for various American magazines.
•
In the last thirty years of his life, Carman's work was devoted to poetry.
•
His manipulation of rhyme and sound clusters creates a musical quality in his poetry.
Come, for the night is cold, The ghostly moonlight fills
Hollow and rift and fold of the eerie Ardise hills.
(from "A Northern Vigil")
• In an essay referring to Tennyson’s poetry he comments on the “magic we cannot fathom in poetry and the charm that we follow in it even when we try to discredit it.” He suggests that good poetry not only appeals to the intelligence but to the senses and soul as well. An example from his work illustrates the point he makes:
There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
(from "A Vagabond Song")
Clips:
Types of alliteration.
An interesting essay by Brent Wood on Margaret Avison’s poetry. Technique and Awareness in Margaret Avison’s Poetry: Diction, Sound Impressionism, Syntax.
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