SOUNDS AND RHYTHM IN POETRY

AUDIBLE SOUNDS• Onomatopoeia (16) – use of a word that resembles the sound it denotes

• Quack, buzz, rattle, bang, squeak, bowwow, burp, choo-choo

• Alliteration (14) – repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of nearby words

• “Sally sold sea shells at the sea shore”

• Assonance (14) – repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words. Vowel sounds are usually part of the naturally stressed syllable of a word.

• asleep under a tree

• Time and tide

• haunt and awesome

• each evening

AUDIBLE SOUNDS• Euphony (16) – lines that are musically pleasant to the ear and smooth

• Cacophony (14) – lines that are discordant and difficult to pronounce

AUDIBLE SOUNDS“Player Piano” by John Updike

My stick fingers click with a snicker

And, chuckling, they knuckle the keys;

Light footed, my steel feelers flicker

And pluck from these keys melodies.

My paper can caper; abandon

Is broadcast by dint of my din,

And no man or band has a hand in

The tones I turn on from within.

At times I'm a jumble of rumbles,

At others I'm light like the moon,

But never my numb plunker fumbles,

Misstrums me, or tries a new tune.

AUDIBLE SOUNDS“Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell

I love to go out in late Septemberamong the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberriesto eat blackberries for breakfast,the stalks very prickly, a penaltythey earn for knowing the black artof blackberry-making; and as I stand among themlifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berriesfall almost unbidden to my tongue,as words sometimes do, certain peculiar wordslike strengths or squinched,many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge wellin the silent, startled, icy, black languageof blackberry -- eating in late September.

RHYME• Rhyme (26) – two or more words or phrases that repeat the same sounds

• Sound Rhymes – vain, reign, rain

• Eye rhymes – bough, cough, or brow, blow

• End Rhyme (25) – rhyme that comes at the end of a line of poetry (most common)

• Internal rhyme (26) – rhymed words within a line of poetry

• “Diving and gliding and sliding” – from “The Cataract of Lodore”

RHYME• Masculine Rhyme (add) – the rhyming of single-syllable words - glade and shade

• Feminine Rhyme (add) – the rhyming of two words with a rhymed stressed syllable followed by one or more rhymed unstressed syllables

• Butter, clutter; gratitude, attitude; quivering, shivering

• Exact Rhyme – rhymed words that share the same stressed vowel sounds, as well as any sounds that follow the vowel.

• Near Rhyme (26) - sounds are almost, but not quite exactly alike. There are many kinds. Also called off rhyme, slant rhyme, and approximate rhyme

• Consonance (15) – identical consonant sounds preceded by a different vowel sound.

• Home, same; worth, breath; trophy, daffy.