1. Elements of Poetry: Sound Devices

2. Alliteration
The repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more words in a line.
The wild and wooly walrus waits and wonders when we will walk by.
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees…
-- from Silver by Walter de la Mare
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? (almost ALL tongue twisters!)

3. Alliteration examples

4. “Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers…”
- from “Three Days to See” by Helen Keller
Alliteration examples

5. A repetition of vowel sounds in a line.
Assonance
A repetition of vowel sounds in a line.
Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese.
Free and easy.
Make the grade.
The stony walls enclosed the holy space.

6. “I made my way to the lake.”
Assonance examples
Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far.
It is among the oldest of living things.
So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems came.
--Carl Sandburg, Early Moon
“…on a proud round cloud in white high night…”
- E. E. Cummings
“I made my way to the lake.”

7. He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Assonance example
The Eagle
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

8. Consonance
The repetition of a consonant sound in the middle or at the ends of words.
She Walks in Beauty
By Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

10. Repetition
Think of all the songs you know where words and lines are repeated – often a lot !
Words or phrases repeated in writings to give emphasis, rhythm, and/or a sense of urgency.
Example: from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Bells”
To the swinging and the ringing
of the bells, bells, bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells
Bells, bells, bells –
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

11. Rhythm and Meter
Rhythm is the sound pattern created by stressed and unstressed syllables.
The pattern can be regular or random.
Meter is the regular patterns of stresses found in many poems and songs..
Rhythm is often combined with rhyme, alliteration, and other poetic devices to add a musical quality to the writing.

12. Rhythm and Meter continued…
Example:
I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.
The purple words/syllables are “stressed”, and they have a regular pattern, so this poetic line has “meter”.

13. Rhyme The repetition of end sounds in words
End rhymes appear at the end of two or more lines of poetry.
Internal rhymes appear within a single line of poetry.
Ring around the rosies,
A pocket full of posies,
Abednego was meek and mild; he softly spoke, he sweetly smiled.
He never called his playmates names, and he was good in running games;

14. This may seem confusing, but it isn’t. Really!
Rhyme Scheme
The pattern of end rhymes (of lines) in a poem.
Letters are used to identify a poem’s rhyme scheme (a.k.a rhyme pattern).
The letter a is placed after the first line and all lines that rhyme with the first line.
The letter b identifies the next line ending with a new sound, and all lines that rhyme with it.
Letters continue to be assigned in sequence to lines containing new ending sounds.
a.k.a = “also known as”
This may seem confusing, but it isn’t. Really!

15. Rhyme Scheme continued…
Examples:
Twinkle, twinkle little star a
How I wonder what you are. a
Up above the earth so high, b
Like a diamond in the sky. b
Baa, baa, black sheep a
Have you any wool? b
Yes sir, yes sir, c
Three bags full. b

16. Rhyme Scheme continued…
What is the rhyme scheme of this stanza?
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
From Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

17. Did you get it right? aaba
Whose woods these are I think I know. a
His house is in the village though; a
He will not see me stopping here b
To watch his woods fill up with snow a

18. and...

19. Onomatopoeia
Review...
Onomatopoeia is also considered a “poetic sound device”.
Words that sound like their meaning --- the “sound” they describe.
buzz… hiss… roar… meow… woof… rumble… howl… snap… zip… zap… blip… whack … crack… crash… flutter… flap… squeak… whirr.. pow… plop… crunch… splash… jingle… rattle… clickety-clack… bam!
Adapted from: 8th Grade English/Language Arts – Poetry Unit: Sound Devices - Blume