Wheelsong Books: rhyme

Friday, 5 January 2024

Using poetic devices

A poetic device is any form of literary feature that can be used when writing poetry. Poetic devices are often used to create effects or define different components in a poem. This includes verbal, visual, structural, rhythmic, metrical, grammatical elements. In short, this means just about anything that can be used in poetry to impact the reader. Furthermore, such poetic devices are tools that poets can use to augment the meaning of a poem, perhaps to make it rhythmically pleasing, or to intensify a core emotion, enhance the mood, or pique the look and feel of the poem.

In previous posts (all links listed below) I featured some of the more common poetic devices such as tempo, end rhyme and internal rhyme schemes, simile, metaphor and also several of the lesser known devices. I have also covered some of the commonly used forms in poetry, including villanelle, triolet and pantoum.

In this new season my plan is to continue, but with the caveat that some of the upcoming blog posts might feature more complex or difficult to master ideas. We are heading into new territory, but if you dare to accompany me, I believe you'll learn a lot about how to take your poetry writing to the next level, and we'll have a lot of fun along the way.

Please check out all of the previous posts in the series if you wish to either catch up on content you've missed, or simply to refresh your memory.

Previous posts in this series

1. Simile
2. Metaphor
3. Repetition and refrains
4. Alliteration
5. Assonance
6. End Rhymes
7. Internal Rhymes
8. Rhythm and Tempo
9. Enjambment

10. Allegory

11. Metonymy

12. Cacophony

13. Calligram

14. Personification

15. Paradox

16. Euphony

Steve Wheeler

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Sunday, 31 December 2023

Poetic devices 16: Euphony

Euphony is the opposite to cacophony. In cacophony, harsh, jarring, dischordent sounds are made, usually to draw attention to something unpleasant or dangerous. A siren wails to warn of impending danger. A harsh cry tells us something alarming is happening. In Euphony, rhythmic and harmonious sounds are made to draw attention to something pleasant or appealing. In movies, you'll note that mellow instruments such as flutes, strings or harps dominate music that illustrates a soothing, romantic or reassuring scene.

In poetry or prose, a combination of words or a sequence of rhythmic sounds can achieve euphony. If they enjoy the sound texture or harmony, readers are more likely to enjoy the text of the poem too. The rhythm and tempo of the words in the lines is important. So too is the rhyme, whether internal or end placed. But not all poetry has to rhyme, so consonance and assonance are also important in creating euphony. Finally, repetition or refrain can also be used to create euphony. All of these have been described in previous blog posts in this series. Just click on the blue hyperlinks in the words to read those articles.

To Autumn, by John Keats, features many of these devices to create a great euphonic poem:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Notice how Keats uses regular repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables. There is also a very soothing end rhyme scheme in play.

One of my all time favourite poems is Do Not Go Gentle by Dylan Thomas, which is presented in the form of a very pleasing, euphonic form known as a Villanelle. Here's the final stanza:

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Note that in a Villanelle, some lines naturally repeat, but it is the poet's use of soft consonants (sad, gentle, fierce) and long vowel sounds (pray, rage and good) that really gives this poem its soothing euphony.