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TJMF Publishing - Open Mike Cafe Editor's Desk Staff Editor Patty Zion |
Your Own Devices, Your Own Poem, Part Four
Cacophony
By Patty Zion
Sound and sense come together in poetry, and the intersection leads into a journey of the mind and the emotions. A poet uses sound to enhance the message expressed in the poem’s imagery. Not all poetry is meant to have a pleasing sound; sometimes the subject matter seems to demand something else. This is when cacophony comes into play.
Cacophony (kack AH fuh nee) consists of discordant sounds in close proximity to each other. Poets use it to create a sense of conflict or harshness, so the words reflect the desired mood.
Dissonance (DIS soh nuns) is the deliberate use of inharmonious sounds to reinforce tension in a piece of writing. The two words cacophony and dissonance are often used interchangeably; their meanings are very similar. However, dissonance more often refers to deliberate discordant sounds, whereas cacophony often refers to the more random appearance of harsh sound. For most poets, the words mean the same thing.
In English, the letters p, b, and k produce the harshest feeling. Used in close proximity, these sounds can bring a tougher mood to any poem. Other dissonant consonants include x, q, and the hard g. The ch sound is more dissonant than the sh. Among vowels, the most dissonant sounds are the short a (as in bag) and the short u (as in rug).
Thinking in these terms, we reach the conclusions that a sack or a bag is probably not as beautiful as a purse. Likewise, a gang or a pack of people is nastier than a crowd. And it would seem less polite to pick something than to choose it.
Of course, other factors come into play, and the poet must consider the overall connotation of each word. But sound makes an important statement in every poem. The careful poet will listen as well as think.
Lewis Carroll slanted the balance toward sound, with sense taking a back seat, in his poem, Jabberwocky:
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! ... "
In The Highwayman, Alfred Noves combined words with strong connotations, and sounds with dissonant tendencies, to create a tense scene:
Back he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Francis Miles Finch, in his poem, The Blue and the Gray, made good use of dissonant sounds to indicate a hard reality:
Where the blades of the grave grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;--
As these examples illustrate, the most appropriate use of cacophony is to accompany a narrative having innate conflict or tension. We might use dissonant sounds when writing about a traffic jam, someone's bad mood, a war, a fearful circumstance, or an ugly object or scene.
Cacophony is the heavy metal of the poetic world. Whereas a poet writing about love would use beautiful sounds, a poet writing about hate should use harsh sounds.
Exercise:
Rewrite the following lines to completely change the mood. Where the sounds feel pleasant and loving, circle the words and replace them with dissonant sounds. The resulting lines may have very different meanings from the original.
A thesaurus will help you to complete this exercise.
Her azure eyes held secret aches
Blue raspberry ice on Abby's lips
He walked, already all that slim, tall, subdued
NOTE: Microsoft Word has a thesaurus built into the dictionary on the toolbar. Simply highlight the word you want to replace and click on the "Dictionary Lookup" symbol. Then click on the "Thesaurus" tab to find synonyms and antonyms.
Now use your experience to write a few lines of poetry about an event or a place you really dislike. Use the thesaurus to find words with dissonant sounds, and use them carefully in the work.
Words do service as the poet's allies. Pay close attention to the words you choose and the way they appear in a poem. Even without realizing, many readers respond as much to the linguistics of poetry as to the literal meaning of the words. As it sounds, it serves.
Staff Editor Patty Zion welcomes your editing questions and comments. You may reach her by e-mail at