by Linda Rief

What Are the Sounds of Poetry?What is it that makes remembering the hundreds of lyrics to your favorite songs so easy? It’s the rhythm, the beat, the way the words fl ow. It’s powerful words arranged in the best order. It’s the strongest line—repeated again and again for emphasis. It’s the feeling you get as you slip under the spell of poetry!

RhythmRhythm is a musical quality produced by repeated sound patterns. All language has rhythm, but it’s especially important in poetry.

Meter The most obvious kind of rhythm is the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syl-lables in the words poets put together. This regu-lar pattern, or beat, is called meter. When poets decide on a regular beat, they make all the lines about the same length. Lines with an equal num-ber of stressed syllables produce the same beat.

Scanning To fi nd a poem’s meter, read the poem aloud. Mark each stressed syllable you hear with the symbol and each unstressed syllable with the symbol . Marking this pattern is called scanning. Read these marked lines aloud, and listen for the beat:

Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches Had bellies with stars. Th e Plain-Belly Sneetches Had none upon thars.

from “The Sneetches” by Dr. Seuss

RhymeWords rhyme when they end with the same vowel or vowel/consonant sound, as in the words clown and noun (both have an ow sound followed by an n sound). In poetry, rhymes can be simple (moth with cloth) or more complicated (antelopewith cantaloupe). Rhyme adds a musical quality to poetry, making it easier to memorize lines, stanzas (groups of lines that express a complete idea), or an entire poem.

End Rhyme Most rhymes are end rhymes: The last word in one line is paired with the last word in the next line. In the excerpt from “The Sneetches” on the left, stars and thars are end rhymes.

Internal Rhyme Sometimes the last word in one line will be echoed by a word placed at the beginning or in the middle of the following line. This is called an internal rhyme. Listen for inter-nal rhymes in these lines:

Th e rumbling, tumbling stones,And “Bones, bones, bones!”

from “The Sea” by James Reeves

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Rhyme Scheme The pattern of rhyming sounds at the ends of lines in a poem is the rhyme scheme. In addition to marking the meter in a poem, you can also mark the rhyme scheme. To mark rhyme scheme, identify words that rhyme by labeling them with the same letter. This rhyme scheme from “The Sea” is a-b-b-b-a. Listen:

Hour upon hour he gnawsTh e rumbling, tumbling stones, And “Bones, bones, bones!”Th e giant sea dog moans, Licking his greasy paws.

abbba

Free Verse Not all poems rhyme, nor do all poems have a regular meter. A poet may decide not to use a regular meter and rhyme scheme, writing instead in loose groupings of words and phrases. This style is known as free verse. Like a conversation, free verse does not have a regular beat, and it usually does not rhyme. Here’s the beginning of a poem written in free verse:

Fift y cents apieceTo eat our lunchWe’d runStraight from schoolInstead of home

from “Good Hot Dogs”by Sandra Cisneros

Other Sound Eff ectsRepetition and Refrain Poetry relies on rep-etition, the recurrence or repeating of something. Rhymes are created by ending sounds that repeat. Rhythm is created by beats that repeat. A poet may repeat a word, phrase, line, or group of lines to make a refrain. A poem’s refrain, like a song’s chorus, may be the part that sticks in our minds.

Alliteration The repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close together is called alliteration. Alliteration often occurs at the begin-ning of a word, but sometimes it is within or at the end of a word. Hear the repetition of wh sounds in these lines. Can you also hear the s sounds?

It laughs a lovely whiteness,And whitely whirs away.

from “Cynthia in the Snow”by Gwendolyn Brooks

Onomatopoeia The use of a word whose sound suggests its meaning—such as buzz or sniff —is called onomatopoeia (ahn uh mat uh PEE uh). The word meow is another example.

With a meow Like the rusty latchOn a gate.

from “Ode to Mi Gato” by Gary Soto

Your Turn Analyze Sounds of Poetry1. Why might a poet want to write in free verse

instead of using a regular rhyme and meter?

2. Give an example of the following sounds from a poem or song, or make up your own:

Sound ExampleRhymeAlliterationOnomatopoeia

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Try the PowerNotes version of this lesson at:Learn It Online

Literary Skills Understand rhythm and meter; understand rhyme and rhyme scheme; understand repetition and refrain; understand sound eff ects in poetry.

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