ing Forw Poetry: Making Music with Words by Melissa Donovan | Sep 8, 2020 | Poetry Writing | 12 comments MAKING MUSIC WITH WORDS it a Do you make music Most writers are primarily concerned with the meaning of the words they choose. Is the language precise and accurate? Do the words provide the best connotation for what the writer is trying to communicate? Does the language show, rather than tell? But poets take language a step further and push it into the realm of music Poets care about meaning, precision, and accuracy as well as connotation and imagery. But they also care about how words sound, because musicality is a fundamental feature of poetry.Poets use various elements of music to compose a poem. But because the written word is read and not heard, some elements of music aren't available, like pitch and timbre. Spoken word and performance (or slam) poetry are exceptions, because these works are designed to be heard and can incorporate musical elements that aren't available to authors who write to be read. But most poets rely on a variety of literary devices and techniques to bring music to their work. Foremost among these are meter, sound, rhyme, repetition, and structure. Meter (Rhythm) In poetry, meter is a syllabic pattern, which is determined by stressed and unstressed syllables. We'll use bold to denote stressed syllables in the first line of "What Kind of Times Are These” by Adrienne Rich: There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill Let's see what happens when we strip away the language, so we can see the raw meter of the line: da-da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-da DUM DUM da-DUM As you can see, the meter gives the poem rhythm, an underlying drumbeat. This demonstration shows why it's important to review the syllables in the lines of your poetry to check the meter. Sound (Melody) A song's melody is determined by the sequence and length of notes played or sung by musicians. In poetry, melody is driven by the vowel andconsonant sounds within the words of the poem. Consider this simple tune: /a de-da, la de-da, la-la-la. Now compare it to this: doo-da, doo-da, doo-de-da. We don't know the exact notes or melody just from reading these sounds, but there is an implied tune when we read them aloud. We can bring a little rhythm to the sounds as well by placing stress on select syllables: LA de-da, LA de-da, LA-LA-LA. DOO-da, DOO-da, DOO-de-DA. So how do we put it all together? By choosing words that match the melody and meter that we're aiming for: LA de-da, LA de-da, LA-LA-LA. On the dock, six o'clock, stomp on rock DO0-da, DOO-da, DOO-de-DA. Stooping, drooping, boorish king You'll notice that in addition to rhythm and meter, we introduced some rhymes. Rhyme The most common rhymes are perfect end rhymes — words that appear at the end of lines in poetry and that rhyme perfectly. Here’s an example from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax (aff link): Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot Nothing is going to get better, it’s not.The words /ot and not rhyme perfectly and are placed at the end of the first two lines, respectively. The placement of rhyme in a poem, coupled with its meter, can give the lines a sing-song quality. We can use different meters, sounds, and rhyme placements to pull different musical qualities into our poetry. Here’s an excerpt from “Spelling” by Margaret Atwood, which shows internal rhymes: At the point where language falls away from the hot bones, at the point where the rock breaks open and darkness flows out of it like blood, at the melting point of granite Try reading these lines aloud to hear the inherent music contained within. Notice that the lines do not use a metrical pattern, but the layered internal rhymes give it rhythm: * away and breaks * hot and rock * bones, open, and flows * The word point appears three times in these five lines, but the repetition of this word is barely noticeable. It's worth noting that some poems don't rhyme at all. Rhyme is important in poetry, but it’s actually a subset of a broader and even more important poetic device that is essential in both poetry and music: repetition. After all, rhyme is just repetition of sounds. RepetitionRepetition is the technique that really sums up how we make music out of words in poetry. All of the techniques mentioned above ultimately use repetition: * We create a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables — and a pattern is really just repetition. * We choose words and arrange them in such a way that they create a pseudo melody, which is achieved primarily by patterning (or repeating) certain sounds. * And we use rhyme — maybe end rhymes that ring like cymbals or internal rhymes that jingle like a tambourine. Rhymes are, by nature, repetition. Layering the repetitions of these elements creates greater musical dynamics in a poem As you can see, a poem's musicality really comes from the repetition of various elements within the lines and stanzas. And there are more elements that we can repeat. Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in close proximity: prickly pears. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in close proximity: hat rack. Some poems even use repetition in their very structure. Structure A poem's music also comes from its structure — the length of lines and stanzas, placement of line and stanza breaks, punctuation, and spacing. All of these elements contribute to the poem's structural sounds and therefore contribute to its musicality. In music, a rest is an interval of silence. In poetry, these intervals are indicated by line breaks, stanza breaks, punctuation, and spacing. Restsare similar to the concept of white space in art. For example, punctuation provides indicators for pausing (or resting) with commas and periods or inflections for questions and exclamations. Do You Make Music with Poetry? Plenty of excellent works of poetry aren't especially musical. But musicality is an important aspect of poetry. How do you infuse your poetry with music? v f QP we t 5 2 12 Comments Pat Miran on November 2, 2019 at 6:09 pm Thank you so much! You made everything very clear. | enjoy poetry best when it “makes music’. Reply Melissa Donovan on November 7, 2019 at 5:11 pm Me too. Thanks, Pat. Reply Walt Page, The Tennessee Poet on September 10, 2020 at 6:16 amIhave played drums for over 50 years and it shows in much of my ooetry. It almost comes naturally, but your explanations of different forms make it much clearer. Thank you for explaining the different techniques and using understandable examples. Reply Melissa Donovan on September 12, 2020 at 7:27 pm @ Thanks for your kind words, Walt. 'm glad you found this helpful. Reply Joelle LeGendre on September 12, 2020 at 4°57 am My son is a musician, professor, and a poet. Intuitively, we know it fits: Perfect pitch, and perfectly pitched words. @ My rather strange mind keeps wanting to interject another word into this sentence: "There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows (green) uphill. It must be the dyslexic mind’s eye. Reply Melissa Donovan on September 12, 2020 at 7:32 pm @ | think knowing a little about music can definitely benefit one's poetry writing! Renlywceey Gradmama2011 on September 12, 2020 at 2:34 pm | try to convey the rythym of my poems, and always rewrite to achieve the effect | want, and recite the lines aloud. Sometimes | wonder, though, if the intended flow of the lines gets through to the reader in the way that | want them to. Poets and writers will tend to have a feeling for poetry as they read it, but casual readers may miss the nuances. How do others handle this concern? Reply Melissa Donovan on September 12, 2020 at 7:33 pm | do the same thing for rhythm! Not with every poem, but with many of them. It would be fun to have someone read our poems to see how they interpret the rhythm and flow. 'm not sure that it's a concern we need to handle as poets. We do our work and put it out into the world when we feel it’s ready. What the reader gets from it (or how they read it) is out of our hands at that point. Reply Donetta on September 28, 2020 at 5:57 pm A great writing exercise is to pick a song, play the song, and then write a poem on what thoughts the song ettprovokes. It's also good to pick a song from a music genre that you normally wouldn't listen to. Thank you for your awesome tips! Reply Melissa Donovan on October 4, 2020 at 4:05 pm @ That's a fun exercise. You can do a lot with poetry and music. Keep writing! Reply Brenda on February 15, 2021 at 8:09 pm Where do I find a musician for my numerous poems Reply Melissa Donovan on February 21, 2021 at 3:20 pm @ Hi Brenda. | wish | could help, but your question is outside my expertise. Check with your local music stores. Reply This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. 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