Today we are continuing our talk on prosody, or sound, in poetry. While many poems rhyme, they don’t all rhyme in the same way. Take the following excerpts of famous poems, for example. In all honesty, posting only the first verse of these poems isn’t fair, since often times the meter and form can only be seen when the poem is read in its entirety. But I simply want you to listen to how you read these poems and how they create rhythm in your head. See if you can figure out whether they have rising or falling rhythm, which we talked about last week.

Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

The Outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.  
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.  
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,  
And the highwayman came riding—
         Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Mary’s Lamb

Mary had a little lamb,
   Its fleece was white as snow,
And every where that Mary went
   The lamb was sure to go;
He followed her to school one day—
   That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play,
   To see a lamb at school.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant sounds within close proximity. This usually happens in consecutive words that are in the same line. In The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, the author uses alliteration in pairs of words. See if you can find the word pairs in each line below.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping.

In Lord Byron’s poem, She Walks in Beauty, he uses alliteration twice in the second line.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

In Birches by Robert Frost, the “b” sound is repeated. Doing so brings emphasis to those words and the poem’s theme.

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.

Tongue twisters can take alliteration to the extreme.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in a line. This also happens with words in close proximity to one another. Take the lyrics from the song “The Rain in Spain” from the musical My Fair Lady, for example. “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.” The repetition of the long “a” sound is assonance. And in the final stanza of Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe uses the repetition of the long “i” sound.

And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
     Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride”

Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of the same consonant sounds. Like assonance, the repetition should be close enough for the ear to make the connection. Listen for the repeated “L” sound in this line from Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Here is a great example of consonance (and alliteration) from V for Vendetta by Alan Moore.

“However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition!”

Rhyme

Rhyming is another way to choose words in order to repeat certain sounds. There are two types of rhyming. Exact rhyme repeats the exact combination of vowel and consonant sound. Words like “bad, sad, glad, and mad” are exact rhymes because the “a” and the following “d” are identical in each word. Near rhymes (also called slant rhymes) have a repeated sound that is not exactly the same. Words like “back, sick, deck, and speak” are near rhymes because they all end in a K sound. Words like blame and foam are also near rhymes because they have the same “m” sound, even though the vowel sounds are different.

Rhyme Schemes

Rhyme schemes are used to create patterns of sounds through repetition. There are a wide variety of rhyme schemes that can be used. Most often, the last word in a line is meant to rhyme with the last word in another line. Sometimes the last word of every line has the same rhyme sound. Sometimes it’s the first and third lines that rhyme. Sometimes the second and fourth. It’s really up to you. In the poem below by Robert Frost, I used capital letters at the end of each line to match rhymes and identify the pattern used. Lines marked with (A) all rhyme. Lines marked with (B) rhyme. And so on.

Neither Out Far Nor In Deep by Robert Frost

The people along the sand     (A)
All turn and look one way.    (B)
They turn their back on the land.    (A)
They look at the sea all day.    (B)

As long as it takes to pass   (C)
A ship keeps raising its hull;   (D)
The wetter ground like glass   (C)
Reflects a standing gull.   (D)

The land may vary more;   (E)
But wherever the truth may be—   (F)
The water comes ashore,   (E)
And the people look at the sea.   (F)

They cannot look out far.   (G)
They cannot look in deep.   (H)
But when was that ever a bar   (G)
To any watch they keep?   (H)

Then consider the rhyme scheme of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by Donald Barthelme

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,   (A)
How I wonder what you are.   (A)
Up above the world so high,   (B)
Like a diamond in the sky.   (B)
Twinkle, twinkle little star   (A)
How I wonder what you are   (A)

Little Jack Horner by Mother Goose

Little Jack Horner   (A)
Sat in the corner,   (A)
Eating a Christmas pie;   (B)
He put in his thumb,   (C)
And pulled out a plum,   (C)
And said, “What a good boy am I!”   (B)

Limericks are poems of five lines that are usually humorous. They have an AABBA rhyme scheme. Also, the first, second, and fifth line have the same meter, while the third and fourth lines have a shorter, identical meter.

There Once Was a Man From Nantucket by Dayton Voorhees

There once was a man from Nantucket   (A)
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.   (A)
    But his daughter, named Nan,   (B)
    Ran away with a man   (B)
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.   (A)

There are many different types of rhyme schemes. You can find a long list of them in this Wikipedia article.

Poetry Challenge

Today’s poetry challenge is to write a new stanza of four lines. This could be a new poem or you could add a second stanza to your poem from last week. This time, however, you must first use one of: alliteration, assonance, or consonance. Then second, you must create a rhyme scheme. Post your poem in the comments, but don’t say what acoustics or rhyme scheme you used. Let your fellow poets see if they can figure it out. Have fun!