Experimental Poetry 14: Speak out loud

Poetry is not only textual. It is also spoken word. The oral tradition of story telling through verse has a long history.

Most of my early poetry experiences were either listening to the spoken word, or on stage performing the spoken word of my own poetry. So poetry has a natural affinity with the voice - whether spoken out loud - or the inner voice, inside the mind. All of our poetry derives from our voice. Some of the best poetry I have ever experienced was heard rather than read. Here in the UK there are some awesome living poets, including John Cooper Clarke, Mike Garry and Harry Baker. The spoken word creates ambience, emotion, cadence and inflection way beyond what you might expect to encounter in a printed text. The spoken word takes poetry to the next level.

It would be only natural then, to also create poetry without using a pen, pencil, laptop, quill etc. All of these are human inventions that enable us to make writing more or less permanent. But what if we would instead create our poetry from only the speaking out loud method?

Method 25: Speaking out loud. Here's how it might work: You think of a topic (give it a title), and then begin speaking. It doesn't need to necessarily make sense, rhyme or have any specific direction. Remember my post on stream of consciousness poetry? Simply speak and the words come out. There are some excellent freestyle rappers who can do this at the drop of the hat, but they have had a lot of practice. Don't expect yours to be perfect first time. It won't be. But somewhere in the jumble of utterings and mutterings that emerge, you might find a few lines or phrases that you can develop later into a fully fledged poem. Don't forget to record it as you speak! 

Now that's experimental poetry!

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams
Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic Poetry
Experimental Poetry 10: Timed Writing
Experimental Poetry 11: Paraphrasing
Experimental Poetry 12: Deliberate Malapropism
Experimental Poetry 13: Breaking Structure

Image from Flickr used under a public domain licence

Poetic devices 7: Internal rhymes

When I first started writing poetry, way back in my late teens, I wrote in a fairly simplistic style. I'll admit, most of my lines were written to be incorporated into rock songs as lyrics. But some of my verses stood alone as poems. I learnt to use end rhymes because that is often the way song lyrics are constructed. 

It was only much later in life that I unearthed internal rhymes. I discovered that can add another dimension to my poetry. They take a little more thinking than simply writing a poem with, say, ABAB end rhymes. Choice of words is important, but so too is attention to the sound of words or phrases. Poets can manipulate the pace and feel of poetry using internal rhymes.

This poem was written recently, and you'll see it exploits the idea behind internal rhymes. Line 7 in particular uses 3 rhymes (page, sage, age) in one line. It also uses another literary device known as enjambment, which will be the topic of another blog post.

Lines 3 and 4 weave in and out of two separate internal rhymes. It's a little more complex, but effective. Hopefully this creates a cool tempo and injects a little more interest into the composition:

All That Sin

Your grin will soon begin to thin
when all that sin is factored in.
Your smile will ail and guile will fail
when all your style begins to pale.
The arrogance of second chance
completes a dance of circumstance.
You close the page of sage; old age
departs the stage with silent rage.

It's not that difficult to master if you think about it. But word choice is vital. Think of phrases that also might rhyme inside a line. 

The poem Galoshes by Rhoda W. Bacmeister is very popular with school children. It's used to show them what can be achieved by using internal rhymes to create musicality and rhythm in poetry. It is also a useful example of onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition and assonance - all in one poem!

Galoshes

Susie’s galoshes
Make splishes and sploshes
And slooshes and sloshes,
As Susie steps slowly
Along in the slush.
They stamp and they tramp
On the ice and concrete,
They get stuck in the muck and the mud;
But Susie likes much best to hear
The slippery slush
As it slooshes and sloshes,
And splishes and sploshes,
All round her galoshes!

There are more outrageous internal rhymes in poetry. You just have to look out for them. Or perhaps you can create your own? I will leave you with one more example from the absolute master of the internal rhyme - one of my favourites - the English spoken word artist Harry Baker. This is a verse from his poem Knees, taken from his Unashamed collection:

Knees

My knees make your knees 

weak at the knees.

For my knees your knees

get down on one knee.

They ask my knees to join your knees

in holy matrimo-knee.

My knees say wait and see.

My knees have been known to tease.

I love the multiple internal rhyming, and absoloutely adore the pun in line six! You can have a lot of fun with internal rhymes. Have a go!

Steve Wheeler

Image from OpenClipArt

Other posts in the Poetic Devices Series:

1. Simile

2. Metaphor

3. Repetition and refrains

4. Alliteration

5. Assonance

6. End Rhymes

Poetic devices 4: Alliteration

Hedgehogs hogging hedges! Martians munching marshmallows! Zombie zebras in the zoo! Fair is foul and foul is fair (from Macbeth by Shakespeare, of course).... What's it all about .... beyond the crazy wordplay?

The poem Astrophobos by Howard Phillips Lovecraft contains the following stanza:

Mystic waves of beauty blended
With the gorgeous golden rays;
Phantasies of bliss descended
In a myrrh’d Elysian haze;
And in lyre-born chords extended
Harmonies of Lydian lays.

What is so special about this passage of poetry? Well, there are plenty of features including allusion, and the lyrical tempo, both of which I will deal with in future posts. But you may notice that there are two instances of words with the same initial consonant sounds in close proximity - beauty blended and gorgeous golden - that add a mystical and magical quality to the work. This is known as alliteration, and is an often ignored poetic device that should attract more attention. 

There are numerous examples of alliteration in poetry, both throughout the ages. One of the most impressive recent pieces I've seen is by illustrious English spoken word artist Harry Baker (whom I saw perform live earlier this year). It's a piece that travels through the entire alphabet of alliteration, to bring a truly delightful confection of wonderful, stellar images. The poem, called The A-Z of Time and Space is performed below by Harry with copious use of his hands (some serious semaphore) and facial expressions (grimacing, grinning and gurning). See what I did there?

What does alliteration do for poetry? Well, it's a phonic technique to emphasise an idea. It relies on similar consonant sounds to help the poem flow and make sense (or not in the case of some nonsense poetry).  Used effectively, alliteration can add that extra something special to make your poetry stand out from the crowd. 

Try some alliteration in your own poetry. How could you use it to emphasise your themes, or bring additional dimension or meaning to your writing? Please post potential poems in the comments section below!

Previous posts in this series

1: Similes
2: Metaphors
3. Repetition and refrains

Steve Wheeler

Image by Emile Education 

Urban poetry

What is urban poetry? Well, have you ever seen or watched a performance of poetry on the streets? I used to do this myself when I was younger. It takes some courage, but out on the streets you always have an audience of some kind. I would get on top of a wooden box with a microphone stand and perform my poetry to anyone who was walking by and who might be prepared to stop and listen for a while. Yep, I was a little bit more insane back then. I've seen others do similar. Urban poetry doesn't have to be outdoors. It can be anywhere. Some of the best urban poetry pops up unexpectedly and takes us all by surprise. 

Urban poetry is about being on the right side of history. It's about telling the truth in spoken word. It can be about down to earth subjects with which we can all identify, like love and loss, traffic jams, chip shop queues, losing your keys, self esteem, or simply... living in a city. More often than not, urban poetry is a protest about something - corrupt politicians, war, poverty, pollution, racism... you name it. If you want to speak out against something by writing and performing poetry, you can call it urban poetry. There's no room for flowery language in urban poetry. It's delivered in a no-compromise, earthy, gritty, street level rhythm and tempo with plenty of rhyme and some choice language too.

Classic urban poetry proponents include Manchester Poet Mike Garry performing Penny for the Guy in an outdoor market, or Gil Scott Heron with his classic The Revolution will not be Televised complete with a bass and drum accompaniment.

Look out also for excellent urban poets such as Harry Baker, the inimitable John Cooper Clark (here he is in 1980 with a poem about urban decay called Beasley Street) and Birmingham poet and playwright Benjamin Zephaniah (here with a 2009 performance of Dis Poetry)... all of whom have influenced my own writing and poetry performances and probably inspired me to write my 2020 collection Urban Voices. If you have poetry in you, and it is just screaming to get out, try the spoken word as well as the written word to get your message out there. You can do a lot worse than plunge into some poetry performances out on the street. 

Be an urban poet - and go make some waves. 

Steve Wheeler

Image copyright by Steve Wheeler 2023