The Sound of Words
Sound is the gold
in the ore of poetry. ~ Robert Frost
The sound of the poem is as
important as the text. ~ Robert Bly
Being lost in sound is best. ~ Robert Wrigley
When poets write, we connect with the world.
Somebody out there is listening, and hopefully reading our words aloud. Words stay in the reader’s ears and hearts.
How do poets choose words for sound? Tools include our voices, the alphabet, alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia, and reading, reading, reading, poetry out loud.
Mary Oliver’s books, Blue Pastures, and A Poetry Handbook, inform and inspire. She declares that the three ingredients of poetry are: the mystery of the universe, spiritual curiosity, and the energy of language. She writes, “to make a poem, we must make sounds. Not random sounds, but chosen sounds.” We use the alphabet for the “felt” quality of its sounds.
I like poetry with lexical energy. Every syllable is divine. Words with energy come alive in my mouth, on the page, and in my ears. Read the first verse of this Emily Dickinson poem on pain, aloud.
I felt a Cleaving in my Mind –
As if my Brain had Split –
I tried to match it – Seam by Seam
But could not make them fit.
Ah! The long vowels. Ah! the short! Ah! the Onomatopoeia!
Garrison Keillor loves the sound of words. From his 2002 book, Good Poems, comes an eleven verse paean to wacky words. Two verses from Sharon Bryan’s poem, A Love Song to Literature, included here.
Never better, mad as a hatter,
right as rain, might and main,
hanky panky, hot toddy,
. . . .
flim flam, happy as a clam,
cat’s pajamas, bee’s knees,
peas in a pod, pleased as punch.
May Swenson uses the assonance tool (interior rhyme) in this poem, Handling Some Small Shells.
Their scrape and clink
together of musical coin
then the tinkling of crickets
more eerie, more thin.
Their click as of crystal
wood, carapace and bone.
a tintinnabular fusion
Their friction spinal and chill.
Another lexically strong poet is Gerard
Another lexically strong poet is Gerard Manley Hopkins. All of his work will slow you down and wake you up to sound. Here’s a short section of To Christ Our Lord.
I caught this morning morning’s minion,
kingdom of day light’s dauphin,
dapple–dawn–drawn
Falcon in his riding
of the rolling level underneath him steady air and striding
I’m given a small amount of space for a large subject. Every poet I leave out is hollering at me, “Hey! What about me! Me! Me!” Among those out–bursters is T.S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Alan Gurganis, Keith Flynn, Gary Snyder, and others too polite to shout.
Bill Moyers asked Quincy Troupe the usual question asked of poets: Why do you write poetry?” Quincy responded, “I write poetry because I need to write poetry. I need the music of language and instant communication that I feel I get in writing poetry.”
Now, here’s a portion of a favorite of mine from A Poem for “Magic.”
& so we cheer, rejoicing with you for this
quicksilver quicksilver quicksilver
moment of fame,
so put the ball on the floor again, “magic”
juke and dazzle, shake and bake down the lane
take the sucker to the hoop, “magic” johnson,
recreate reverse hoodoo gems off the spin,
deal alley-oop-dunk-a-thon-magician passes
now, double-pump, scissor,
vamp through space
hang in place & pit it all up in the sucker’s face.
. . . .
Let us cheer the energetic word, alive and well, for the sheer sounds of letters;
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z!
Resources
Blue Pastures, Mary Oliver, Harcourt Brace, NY 1995
A Poetry Handbook, Mary Oliver, Harcourt Brace, NY 1994.
How To Read A Poem and Fall In Love With Poetry, Edward Hirsch, Harcourt, Inc 1999.
The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets, Bill Moyers, Doubleday, NY 1995.