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
• rhyme
• rhythm
• sound effects
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Make It Rhyme
Rhyme—repetition of the sound of the stressed
vowel and any sounds that follow it in words that
are close together in a poem.
Listen to the poem and then identify the rhymes.
And haply a bell with a luring call
Summoned their feet to tread
Midst the cruel rocks, where the deep pitfall
And the lurking snare are spread.
—from “Black Sheep” by Richard Burton
Modern Poetry
Make It Rhyme
In an exact rhyme, all
sounds from the
stressed vowel to the
end of the word are
repeated.
In an approximate
rhyme, some sounds
are repeated, but the
words are not exact
echoes of each other.
immersion—conversion
pleasure—treasure
sphere—revere
regularly—February
landing—scanning
song—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 bore
Bees 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 right
Went 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
a
a
b
b
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 deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
—from “A Dream within a Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe
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 deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is 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.
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Rhythm and Meter
Rhythm—musical quality based on repetition.
A common form of rhythm is meter, a regular
pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in
each line.
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
Rhythm and Meter
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
Foot—metrical unit, usually consisting of one
stressed syllable and one or more unstressed
syllables.
There are several different kinds of metrical feet.
Iamb—unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable.
′
′
′
′
˘
˘
˘
˘
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.
′
′
˘
˘
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Anapest—two unstressed syllables followed by a
stressed syllable.
′ ˘ ˘ ′
˘
˘
And the muscles of his brawny arms
—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Rhythm and Meter
Dactyl—one stressed syllable followed by two
unstressed syllables.
′
˘ ˘
Singing in Paradise!
—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Spondee—two stressed syllables.
′
′
Thanks, Thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
—from “The Village Blacksmith” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Rhythm and Meter
Quick Check
Our little house upon the hill
In summer time strange voices fill;
With ceaseless rustle of the leaves,
Which syllables
are stressed in
the first two
lines?
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
Now, scan the
rest of the
excerpt. What is
the predominant
type of foot?
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Free Verse
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
Notice that free verse sounds similar to prose or
to everyday spoken language.
Free Verse
Poets writing free verse may not follow formal
rules, but they do pay close attention to
• the rhythmic rise and fall of the
voice
• balance between long and
short phrases
• repetition of words and
rhymes
• pauses
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Sound Effects
In addition to rhythm and rhyme, poets also use
onomatopoeia, alliteration, and assonance to
give their poems a musical quality.
Onomatopoeia—use of words that sound like
what they mean.
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
Sound Effects
Alliteration—repetition of the same consonant
sound in several words, usually at the beginnings
of the words.
A bird sang sweet and strong
In the top of the highest tree.
He said, “I pour out my heart in song
For 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
Quick Check
Black riders came from the sea
by 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 hair
In the rush upon the wind:
Thus the ride of Sin.
Find an example
of each of type of
sound effect:
• Alliteration
• Assonance
• Onomatopoeia
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Practice
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
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The End