Saturday, September 4, 2010

Thinking of You Guys

Just reading this morning and I encountered a couple of sentences that would have been nice to have had for the discussion yesterday on poetic terms. I am posting this for the Writing Poetry class but the Glossary of Poetic Terms link would be useful to all of you as you work on your dramatic monologues/Lynch pieces.

For example, the repetitions of both consonant and vowel sounds are really well-illustrated in the following lines by Bernard Cooper in his novel A Year of Rhymes.

"September ended in a stretch of white weather. The montone of morning would continue into noon."

Note the repeating short e sounds, the S and W and the T. There is near alliteration in September stretch, white weather, and monotone of morning and the n sounds throughout the second sentence are great examples of consonance, while the long o of monotone and morning are examples of assonance.

Paying attention to word choices and sound makes a sentence that otherwise just sets up a season and its quality of morning into something artful and pleasing to the eye and ear.

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