So far, we've learned that poetry is memorably speech. It uses a lot of memory aids ("mnemonic techniques"), including cadence and meter, both of which are best identified if we scan the whole poem, line by line from right to left. Two elements are key: concision and repetitions of sounds, starting with rhymes.
Every language has a set number of sounds, called "phonemes". Even today, some African languages have over 100 distinct sounds. As humankind emigrated to other areas many of these were lost. Mandarin has 56. English, 44. Algonquin, 29. By the time people inhabited Hawaii they were down to 13. There is a tribe along the Amazon with as few as 7; their babies learn to communicate through humming before they can speak!
Many of these phonemes were originally onomatopoeic, like "moo", or "hiss". Thus, regardless of what language you speak, you might be imitating the sounds of animals, some of which may have gone extinct thousands of years ago.
Rhymes are a subset of sounds. In going to the superset we transition from the easiest aspect of poetry to the most complex.
"I just read ahead. Do we have to know all of these different type of sounds?"
No, but we need to know of them and the importance of their length and strength. Sonics are what separate an amateur's work from an experts. It is what attracts praise from sophisticated editors and contest judges. In close decisions, it wins slams. We will go with a "quick and dirty" approach, focusing on what someone needs to know, and footnote two excellent articles by Rachel Lindley at bottom.
For now, we'll begin with, arguably, the five most pleasant sounding words ever written:
Ozone on the midnight wind...and examine what makes these lyrics so unforgettable.
Length
The time it takes to make a sound can set a pace [with other sounds of that duration] or make a phoneme stand out [from sounds of different lengths]. For vowels, the "i" and "e" in "bit" and "bet" are called "short" for a reason. A long "oh", as in "ozone", is medium length. A long "i" (e.g. "lie") sounds like "ah-ee" or "uh-ee", a combination of sounds tantamount to a dipthong (e.g. "oi" as in "oink" or "ou" as in "out"). Similarly, a long "a", as in "cake", sounds like a short "e" followed by a long one: "eh-ee".
Among consonants, ones that we can spit out (e.g hard "g" as in "get, "b", "k", and "p") are very quick. The "s" sound in "yes" or the "zh" sound in "pleasure" or "joie de vivre" take longer. The "sh" (e.g. "shop") and "ch" ("chop") sounds are longer still. We make "m" and "n" sounds largely through our noses and it takes a while to distinguish them.
Thus, "Ozone on" ("Oh-zohn awn") is a very slow start to our example line, as is "night" ("na-eet" or "nuh-eet"), but the "i" in "mid" and "wind" is quick. The line drives along slowly, as if in a construction zone, pumps its breaks with "mid", and then comes to a slow stop with "wind". The word "the" ("thuh") is medium in duration, transitioning from the slothlike first half of the line to the cautious arrest.
A | E | I | O | U
ah aw ai | eh ee | ih uh-ee | aw oh | uh oo oo yu
cat paw ate | pet see | sit eye | pot low | cut put gnu cue
Y | Shwa <- Like a shortened "u" from "put"
ye uh-ee ee | ½ oo <-- between the b and l in "able".
yet sky any | cook <- Sometime written with an inverted "e".
B | C s | D | F | G j | H | J zh | K | L
but | cow ice | die | foe | go age | hot | jut raj | kit | lit
M | N | P | Q | R | S zh | T | V | W | X | Z
man | now | pin | que | raw | see leisure | tea | vet | wet | ks | zen
Ch | Sh | Ph | th | th
chi | she | phil | the | thin
As an exercise, try grouping the above sounds as "short", "medium", and "long" in duration. Then create a second list, categorizing them as "soft", "medium", or "harsh":
Strength
The softness/weakness or harshness/strength of consonants can echo and enhance an atmosphere of relaxation or tension, respectively.
Poe's famous trochaic heptameter opening in "The Raven" uses a lot of strong consonants before vowel sounds to create tension/suspense:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
Linking the sounds of "weak" and "weary", internal rhyming with "dreary", highlights our sense of ominous vulnerability.
In our example line, most of the sounds are soft ("m", "n") or medium ("z"):
Ozone on the midnight wind
The only hard sounds are "d" and "t" and those come after vowels, not right before them. The "t" at the beginning of, say, "tight" is harder than the one at the end, or the one at the end of "night". Similarly, the consonants at the beginning of "bib", "dud", "gig", "kick", and "pop" are sounded more strongly than the same consonants at the ends of those words.
Connection
Note that in the words "midnight wind" the "d" and "n" sounds switch, both coming after a short "i". As with all sonic repetitions, this links the two words in our subconscious minds. This linkage is made firmer by the fact that the two words, "midnight" and "wind", have more than one sound in common. This is particularly strong if the sounds occur in stressed syllables. Meanwhile, the "n" phonemes in "Ozone on" link those two words, creating the sense of being high--perhaps literally and figuratively. This creates a mood of being euphoric in a dark breeze.
In this way our words and our sounds can have different meanings, or the same meanings with different emphasis.
Which of these two fabrics did Erin Hopson choose in her ekphrastic masterpiece, “How Aimée remembers Jaguar"? Satin or linen?
where wel|come sat|in soothes | the burn.
where wel|come lin|en soothes | the burn.
Both lines work as iambic tetrameter so rhythm/meter aren’t an issue.
If Erin wanted to alliterate with “satin soothes” she’d have gone with the first line.
Instead, she wanted to link the “l” of “linen” with the “l” in “welcome”. This makes the line about hospitality more than healing. More about the care than the cure. A poet has to do this with every phoneme in every word. Think of a game of Jenga. One wrong word and the whole poem collapses.
To recap, in general:
- A group of long sounds slows the pace, creating a sense of ease.
- A group of short sounds quickens the pace, creating tension.
- A group of soft sounds eases tension.
- A group of harsh sounds creates tension.
- Hard consonants sound more so before vowels than at the end of words.
- Repeating sounds links the words that contain them.
- Repetitions involving stressed syllables make stronger links.
- Multiple repetitions (e.g. "wild" & "life") make stronger links.
Next: Productions
============== Footnotes ==============
AI: A heavy syllable is a syllable that contains a long vowel sound or ends in a consonant. Heavy syllables are considered "stronger" or "weightier" than light syllables, which contain short vowel sounds and no final consonant. In prosodic analysis, the distinction between heavy and light syllables is important for determining the rhythmic structure and stress patterns of words and phrases.
From the Poetry Free-For-All "Blurbs of Wisdom":
Rachel Lindley - Aural Imagery and Sonics
Consonants come in two general "flavours" - voiced and unvoiced. Voiced consonants occur when you let your vocal chords vibrate as you form them. Unvoiced consonants occur when you don't. As a general rule of thumb, unvoiced consonants have a harsher sound than voiced consonants, which generally take longer to form because of the vocal chord involvement and are also softened by the vocal chord vibration.
The Speedy Ones
1. Unvoiced Plosives - that's a fancy way of saying that these are sounds you make when trapping air behind your teeth or lips and then releasing it explosively without letting your vocal chords vibrate. Unvoiced plosives include T and P. They're fast, they're harsher, and they're made in a "spitting" fashion. Using these sounds can help you create a sense of staccato speed. You could use them to emphasize a sense of shock or surprise, irritation, physical lightness, a sense of lightheartedness, and so on.
2. Voiced Plosives - the talkative version of the above. Voiced plosives include D and B. These sounds can create more sense of forcefulness than the above, but without the same harshness of sound and as such without the same effect in communicating, say, irritation. These are "bouncy" sounds and "demanding" sounds. Just look at what those two words start with. B's are great for building humour in imagery, and D's are great for building forceful urgency.
3. Unvoiced Glottals - Glottals in general are sometimes lumped in with plosives, because they are also made by trapping air and then explosively releasing it. However, in this case this is done in the back of the throat. The lone unvoiced glottal is K. Because of its clicking effect, it's great in enforcing quickness and urgency, and because of its unvoiced nature it's great at enforcing a sense of anger or danger, or a sense of snatching something quickly.
4. Voiced Glottals - The lone voiced glottal is a hard G. It can be used to create a "gurgling" effect ("gurgle" being a perfect example). Say you wanted to get across a sense of someone choking on their words or feeling indignation - a lot of G sounds can help build that effect. It has some of the demanding nature of a D and can also be used to enforce humour. It can increase speed, although not to the same extent as an unvoiced glottal can.
The Slowpokes
5. Unvoiced Fricatives - These are formed when you release air continuously through a small opening between the teeth, lips, or throat without letting your vocal chords get into the game. These include SH (as in "sheep"), S (as in "sleep"), H, TH (as in "thick") and F (as in "fur"). Because of their hissing nature, lots of fricatives are used to good effect in creating a sense of threat, intensity, and sensuality. H can also have an effect found in voiced fricatives: it can communicate a sense of heaviness of atmosphere or physicality by the way the air has to be forced out the throat in order to create any sound at all. "Heave!"
6. Voiced Fricatives - the effect of the hissing sound is changed dramatically when you let your vocal chords vibrate. They include Z ("zoom"), ZH ("azure"), TH ("soothe"), and V ("vapid"). These are more sensual, buzzing sounds, long and drawn out. They can help create an erotic atmosphere, a relaxed one, a sense of peace, a sense of heaviness. Because Z and ZH are a higher-pitched vibration and are therefore more strident, they can also be used to enforce a constant annoyance, like a fly buzzing.
7. Nasals - nasals are formed by almost completely closing off the lips, teeth, or throat and letting things hummmmmmmm. These include M, N, and NG. These sounds are some of the most drawn out. I mean, you can hum on one breath for a long, long time. These sounds can have a huge range of effect. M tends to get the best job, and can be used to create a sense of relaxation, sensuality, and largess. N is middle of the road. It can be used to create similar effect, but it also has a touch of a higher-pitched nose vibration in it, which can create a more strident effect. The one with the ugliest job is NG. Because it is a seriously high-pitched nasal vibration, it can be used to create an atmosphere of irritation and annoyance and emphasize strong vibrational environmental effects. (for example, "clang").
8. Approximants - these are sounds that don't know whether they're vowels or consonants. They are the missing link between the closed sounds of consonants and the open sounds of vowels. There are two kinds of approximants: liquids / resonants, which include R and L, and semi-vowels, which include W and Y (although some would say that Y and W could also be diphthongs, they're so close to the edge). These sounds can seriously smooth out rhythm and tone, having a "liquid" effect on sound and imagery. R, being formed so close to the vocal folds, has more vibration and therefore can create a sense of "growling", good in communicating anger, desire, and such.
9. Affricatives - these are the diphthongs of consonants, made with a rapid-fire switch from one consonant sound to another. These include CH (chair) and J (judge). Since CH is a combination of T and SH, it has the explosive effect of an unvoiced plosive in combination with the hissing effect of an unvoiced fricative. It's the brother of SH, only more demanding. "Chomp!" J, being a combination of D and ZH, has a softer side, is more sensual, but has more oomph and emphasis than a standard voiced fricative. "Jump!" It's meatier than the slithering fricative types, juicier. Affricatives don't creep up on you with their charm, they beat you over the head with it.
Rachel Lindley - Rhythm and Sound in Poetry
Now let's add consonant and vowel phonemes to the mix. When you read a poem aloud, keeping in mind the rhythm as you do so, you may begin to get a sense, not only of the relative speed and pitch of the voice, but the overall "feeling" or "atmosphere" that may be generated by the sounds. (Remember: always read aloud.) For instance, if you have a lot of short, quick phonemes, such as a lot of unvoiced plosive consonants or glottal consonants like "t", "k", "p", or "g" and a lot of short vowel sounds like "eh", "ih" or "ah", a line moves quickly and sharply. Enough sharp, unvoiced consonants like "p", "t" or "k", and when read aloud you will feel as if you almost spit the words. Add a lot of unvoiced sibilant fricatives or affricatives like "s", "sh" or "ch", and a line may sound hissed, which can be either threatening or alluring, depending on the length of the vowels. Short vowels like "ah", "ih", and "eh" can increase pitch and speed; long, open vowels (especially dipthongs) like "aw", "oh", "ow" and "oo" deepen and slow the pitch and speed. Voiced fricatives like "th" in "them", "v", "z" or "zh" sounds in combination with nasals or semi-vowels like "w", "m", "n", or "y" will generally smooth (a perfect example, by the way) and slow a line.
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