We’ve all been taught that there are five vowels, “and sometimes “y.”  But those five vowels make many more sounds, fourteen or fifteen, depending on which internet source you consult.  (Apparently this is not yet an exact science.)  The value of the sounds – which is important to poetry – ranges from the high of key, cane or kite (or bee, bay and by) to the low “oh” and “oo” sounds (coat, cool, or bone and boo).

The echo of vowel sounds from one word to another is called assonance.  I’ve been playing with that feature.  The trick, for me, is keep to assonance and not get stuck in rhyme.  I haven’t succeeded yet with the “eh” sound, because there are so many words ending in -ed: bed, bread, fed, red . . . .  Rhyming is not the point of this exercise.  The long “I” has similar problems.  Too much fine wine.

Here are a few experiments:

Evening: sense
and  sound calm us down,
which is why we say
Hallowe’en,
that shriek, a keen.

Sums hum
in the air. Money
troubles the bed.
Love
comes to shove.

Flash, dash, fat cat!
Clap for all that’s
under your hat,
in your stash.
What’s after?  Ash.

You don’t have to be a poet to play this game, but I think it’s good practice if you’d like to become one.

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