Hear the Music

Make It Rhyme

Rhythm and Meter

Free Verse

Sound Effects

Practice

The Sounds of Poetry

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Poetry’s musical quality makes it different from other forms of literature. A good poem practically sings.

To achieve this musical effect, poets use

• rhyme

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• rhythm

• sound effects

Hear the Music

Rhyme—repetition of the sound of the stressed vowel and any sounds that follow it in words that are close together in a poem.

And haply a bell with a luring callSummoned their feet to tread

Midst the cruel rocks, where the deep pitfallAnd the lurking snare are spread.

—from “Black Sheep” by Richard Burton

Modern Poetry

Make It Rhyme

Listen to the poem and then identify the rhymes.

In an exact rhyme, all sounds from the stressed vowel to the end of the word are repeated.

immersion—conversionpleasure—treasuresphere—revere

In an approximate rhyme, some sounds are repeated, but the words are not exact echoes of each other.

regularly—Februarylanding—scanningsong—gone

Make It Rhyme

Rhymes usually occur at the ends of lines. This type of rhyme is called end rhyme.

Golden pulse grew on the shore,Ferns along the hill,

And the red cliff roses boreBees to drink their fill;

—from “Golden Purse” by John Myers O’Hara

Make It Rhyme

When rhyme occurs within a line, it is called internal rhyme.

The Sun came up upon the left,Out of the sea came he!And he shone bright, and on the rightWent down into the sea.—from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Make It Rhyme

A regular pattern of end rhyme, or rhyme scheme, defines the shape of a poem and holds it together.

Apple-green west and an orange bar,And the crystal eye of a lone, one star . . . And, “Child, take the shears and cut what you will,Frost to-night—so clear and dead-still.”

—from “Frost To-Night” by Edith M. Thomas

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Make It Rhyme

Find the end rhymes in this excerpt, including approximate rhymes.

Make It Rhyme

Quick Check

Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow—You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.—from “A Dream within a Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe

Find the internal rhymes in this excerpt, including approximate rhymes.

Make It Rhyme

Quick Check

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Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow—You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.—from “A Dream within a Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe

Rhythm—musical quality based on repetition.

A common form of rhythm is meter, a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line.

Rhythm and Meter

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills—from “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth

Scanning a Poem’s Meter

When you analyze a poem to show its meter, you are scanning the poem. Scanning is a way of taking a poem apart to see how the poet has created its music.

• Stressed syllables are marked with the symbol (′).

• Unstressed syllables are marked the symbol (˘).

Rhythm and Meter

Iamb—unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

There are several different kinds of metrical feet.

Foot—metrical unit, usually consisting of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

′˘ ′˘ ′˘ ′˘

Rhythm and Meter

Trochee—stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

Anapest—two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

′ ˘ ′ ˘

And the muscles of his brawny arms—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

′˘˘ ′˘˘

Rhythm and Meter

Spondee—two stressed syllables.

Dactyl—one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

Singing in Paradise!—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

′ ˘ ˘

Thanks, Thanks to thee, my worthy friend,—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

′ ′

Rhythm and Meter

Which syllables are stressed in the first two lines?

Now, scan the rest of the excerpt. What is the predominant type of foot?

Rhythm and Meter

Quick Check

Our little house upon the hill

In summer time strange voices fill;

With ceaseless rustle of the leaves,

And birds that twitter in the eaves,

And all the vines entangled so

The village lights no longer show.

—from “Our Little House” by Thomas Walsh

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Notice that free verse sounds similar to prose or to everyday spoken language.

Free verse—poetry that does not follow a regular pattern of rhyme and meter.

This poetry gets bored of being alone,It wants to go outdoors to chew on the winds,to fill its commas with the keels of rowboats. . . .

—from “Living Poetry” by Hugo Margenat

Free Verse

• the rhythmic rise and fall of the voice

Poets writing free verse may not follow formal rules, but they do pay close attention to

• pauses

• balance between long and short phrases

• repetition of words and rhymes

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Free Verse

I am a copper wire slung in the air,Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of

shadow.Night and day I keep singing—humming and

thrumming:—from “Under a Telephone Pole” by Carl Sandburg

Onomatopoeia—use of words that sound like what they mean.

In addition to rhythm and rhyme, poets also use onomatopoeia, alliteration, and assonance to give their poems a musical quality.

Sound Effects

Alliteration—repetition of the same consonant sound in several words, usually at the beginnings of the words.

A bird sang sweet and strongIn the top of the highest tree.

He said, “I pour out my heart in songFor the summer that soon shall be.”

from “Spring Song” by George William Curtis

Sound Effects

Assonance—repetition of the same vowel sound in several words.

The baby moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe,sails and sails in the Indian west.

A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes,sit and sit around the Indian moon.

—from “Early Moon” by Carl Sandburg

Sound Effects

Find an example of each of type of sound effect:

• Alliteration

• Assonance

• Onomatopoeia

Sound Effects

Quick Check

Black riders came from the seaby Stephen Crane

Black riders came from the sea.There was clang and clang of spear and shield,And clash and clash of roof and heel,Wild shouts and the wave of hairIn the rush upon the wind:Thus the ride of Sin.

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Find elements of poetry in the real world.

• List ten names. Identify the stressed and unstressed syllables. What “tunes” do the names make?

• Find political slogans that use rhyme and alliteration.

• Think of two exact rhymes and two approximate rhymes for ocean, wash, warm, beard, and power.

• Describe the following scenes, using onomatopoeia:

• a rainy, windy night

• a cat eating dry cat food

Practice

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