Experimental Poetry 12: Deliberate Malapropism

A malapropism is an error in speech or text where a similar sounding word mistakenly replaces the correct word. There are numerous examples. Have you ever been taken for granite? 

The term malapropism derives from Mrs. Malaprop, a comic character who appears in the 1775 play The Rivals, by Richard Sheridan. She is constantly prone to using the wrong words in her conversation. She mixes up allegory with alligator, and illiterate with obliterate.  However, there are plenty of earlier incidences of comic word mangling in literature, including several found in the work of William  Shakespeare. 

Modern day malapropism can be hilarious... did you know that medieval cathedrals were supported by flying buttocks? Or that the fun we have in childhood is incomparable to the fun of adultery? 

Here's a recent poem posted in Invisible Poets. The poem is I am a Warrior by Chiledu Ohagi, and this is the first stanza...

I wedge a war against my feelings
pulling down strongholds
breaking the chains of depression
My pages, my battleground
My pen, my mighty weapon
and my ink's my ammunition

It's a very good poem, but it contains a small typographical error. I wedge war should be I wage war. The error was pointed out by another member, but when you think about it, wedging war certainly sounds surreally poetic. It's on a par with writing that you'll skew for peace, or astounding the alarm. I don't think he should correct it.

Method 20: Deliberate Malapropism. This got me thinking... how surreal and experimental can you get by using deliberate malapropisms? The trick is to make the error obvious, and create a phonetic switch. Wedge sounds like wage, just as skew sounds like sue, and as astounding sounds like sounding. These are instantly recognisable as phonetic switches, because the phrases are familiar. 

Waging war is a commonly used phrase. Wedging war is not. How do you wedge a war? It's a jarring word to use, and that makes it interesting, manifesting all sorts of images. Wedging is more poetically inventive than waging. How do you skew peace? Can you astound an alarm? Again, the text suddenly becomes a little more intriguing, because the meaning now needs to be sought out. 

Method 21: Reiterative Malapropism. What words can you use that are homophones (sound like another word) or similarly sounding, but with a distinctly different meaning? Can you strengthen your existing poems by changing words with other words that sound similar, or pun-like, and enhance the meaning of the poem?

If you deliberately use phonetic errors such as malapropisms in your poetry, you're bound to attract some attention. Just be prepared to correct the correctors when they scrawl out from under their woks to point out your 'era'.

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

Image from Wikimedia Commons

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