You’re reading this workshop because you write. Your tools of the trade are words. So what is a word? To give a very simple definition, a spoken word is a sound or a set of sounds that stands for something else. The written word is a transcription of that sound. That means that writers aren’t only people who put pen to paper; they are also architects of sound.

Since writing exists in at least two forms, written and aural, it is helpful to read a piece aloud when analyzing or critiquing a section; when critiquing a poem this should be a requirement. The sound of a piece can be used to place emphasis on the meaning. A light, playful poem may be sing-song like a nursery rhyme, while a serious poem may be slow and measured. In prose, a chase scene may be written in short, abrupt phrases, where a chapter where two lovers linger by the brook may contain long, melodious sentences. Most people study sound devices in school, but as a refresher course, you can find some basic vocabulary here: [link]

(Even though this list says poetic terms, do not despair, prose writers—these are relevant for you, too.)

So what do these devices do? Meter (see meter guide here: [link]) is like a drumbeat underneath the poem, setting the pace. Rhyme creates a pleasant repetition that links the lines of a poem together sonically, and like assonance, alliteration, and consonance, it can work with other devices or separately to make a harmonious, melodious sounding poem. If the subject matter of the poem is about fighting and discord, it may be a better choice not to use a lot of assonance, alliteration, consonance, and/or rhyme.

Warning: Though some devices work by making links between words, be careful about overdoing it. Too much alliteration sounds silly, like a tongue twister.

When dealing with sound devices, it can be helpful to know the effects of individual sounds. My favorite guide to sounds in English can be found here.

So how do we use these sound devices to help our writing? Let’s go to the masters.

In Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening,” he begins, “Whose woods these are I think I know.” The gentle, long ‘w’ sounds and the ‘o’s of the first two words are immediately calming; only the ‘k’ in ‘think’ is the least bit harsh. The first two words also sound a little like owl hoots (whoo, whoo / whose woods), which emphasizes the idea of being alone in the woods at night. The meter (iambic tetrameter) is steady, even, and calm, and the rhyme scheme helps make the poem musical and gives the piece structure and organization. You may notice that during the climax of the poem, in the third stanza, the sounds grow harsher, to emphasize the building tension and conflict of the poem, before it resolves again in the final stanza. Having such controlled meter and rhyme, a structure beneath the poem, hints that there is an underlying structure and order to the narrator’s world.

Plath’s “Daddy” is written from the viewpoint of a child. Appropriately, she uses sound playfully, like a nursery rhyme, with lots of repetition, alliteration, assonance, and of course, rhyme. Dickenson’s poems, many about God and/or death, use ballad meter (the same meter found in most hymns) to emphasize the religious aspect of her poetry. Thomas Gray’s line “The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,” contains a lot of long ‘o’ sounds, which sound like cattle lowing, and slows the pace of the meter down so that the poem itself gives a sense of what the setting is like. The forms fit the content.

Prose writers, do not despair! Sound devices are common in prose as well as poetry. Poe uses elaborate sounds to ornament his prose and add to their elaborate Gothic feel. In Lolita, Nabokov uses sound elegantly, almost musically, to underscore how sophisticated and cultured his narrator is. Rushdie sometimes omits punctuation and runs words together in Midnight’s Children in order to create a rushed, chaotic feel. Even Mark Twain, in The Innocents Abroad, uses subtle sound devices to propel the reader along the page, as when he writes, “the customs and costumes of twenty curious peoples—the great cities of half a world—they were to hob-nob with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes, grand moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires!” Listen to the similarities in custom/costume/curious, hob-nob/nobility, nobility/friendly, converse/kings, anointed/lords, and mighty/empires.

In prose, especially long prose, the writer may end up paying less attention to sound, but it can still be used to place subtle but powerful emphasis on ideas the writer wants to highlight. Thoreau’s phrase, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” starts out with lots of alliteration ( mass/men, lead/lives) and assonance (lives/quiet) so that the beginning of the phrase is sonically ‘linked’ together. It sounds smooth and melodic—and then, all of a sudden, there’s the sharp ‘t’ sound, and the link is broken—‘desperation’ hangs in the air, emphasized by its lack of connection (and if one analyzes further, possibly signaling how the disconnect of the mass of men from those around them the same way the sound is disconnected from that of the rest of the phrase, but don’t worry about that).

Even though this seems like a lot of work, once you get a very basic grasp of the ideas and start putting them into practice, some of this will start to come naturally, and you’ll realize that you know more about sound than you thought. Which word has a sharper sound, ‘hen’ or ‘chick’?

Your task this time around is to write a piece of poetry or prose, no more than five hundred words, that uses sound to emphasize meaning, using whichever devices you choose.



Links:

Guide to Meter:
[link]

Poetic Sense: Sound and Imagery [discusses prose, too!]:
[link]

The Sound of –um, well- Sound: [link]


Sound in Poems:

“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickenson: [link]

“Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost: [link]

“Elegy in Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray:
[link]

“Daddy” by Sylvia Plath
text: [link]
sound recording: [link]


Sound in Prose:

“The Works of Edgar Allan Poe” by Edgar Allan Poe:
[link]

“Walden” by Henry David Thoreau:
[link]

“The Innocents Abroad” by Mark Twain:
[link]