the sounds of poetry
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The Sounds of Poetry. Feature Menu. Hear the Music Make It Rhyme Rhythm and Meter Free Verse Sound Effects Practice. Hear the Music. Poetry’s musical quality makes it different from other forms of literature. A good poem practically sings. To achieve this musical effect, poets use. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Hear the Music
Make It Rhyme
Rhythm and Meter
Free Verse
Sound Effects
Practice
The Sounds of Poetry
Feature Menu
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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