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TJMF Publishing - Open Mike Cafe Editor's Desk Staff Editor Patty Zion |
Movement in Poetry, Part Five
Motion Through Emotion
by Patty Zion, Staff Editor
We have explored a variety of ways to create and control movement in our poetry. There is one supreme technique remaining, which has the power to literally swoosh the reader through a poem and etch it into his or her memory: emotion.
It is no accident that the word emotion happens to contain the word motion, and we often say an emotionally charged poem moves us. Powerful human feelings can carry us through life, often without our permission or conscious understanding. Likewise, when a poem touches our emotions, we feel a pull to continue reading, then to reread again and again. We all share the desire to know that someone else has felt the joy, sorrow, anger, or yearning we have felt. Top-quality poetry can and does fulfill that desire.
Virtually every poet feels emotion and wants to relate the feeling through words. This is the primary reason most poets give for wanting to write, but communicating that powerful feeling requires skill, talent, and practice.
One method of communicating emotion is through the sound of a line of poetry, in particular the vowel sounds. Long OH, OO, and AH sounds slow down the read and also give the poem a mournful or thoughtful mood. Consider these famous lines from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Tayler Coleridge:
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.Notice the repeated OH and AH sounds, which lend a sad tone to the stanza. Try reading this stanza aloud. It is almost impossible to read it quickly, as the long vowel sounds create a natural drawn-out tempo. The stanza also contains frequent L and N sounds, adding even more poignancy and slowing the pace. If Coleridge had chosen to pepper the lines with S, T, or P sounds, the mood would be significantly different, and the speed would be much greater.
Obviously, movement in poetry is not only about luring the reader to move quickly through the text; we want the reader to feel inspired by the poem, and therefore to read through to the end.
By contrast, study this excerpt from The Joy of Little Things, by my favorite poet, Robert W. Service:
There comes a pause, a shining hour,
A dog that leaps, a hand that clings:
O Titan, turn from pomp and power;
Give all your heart to little things.
This section of a happy poem repeats long A, short and long I, and EE sounds, giving the reader a sense of a quicker pace and mounting joy. Robert Service also plants plenty of appropriate consonant sounds: S, T, P, and NG. The combination of light sounds and cheerful words gives this poem a cheerful outlook, which moves the reader at a light, snappy pace to the very end of the work.
Many factors work together to create mood and emotion; while vowel and consonant sounds do their work, the specific word choices also matter. The careful poet will consider all aspects of emotion, in order to draw the reader into the poet’s emotional world.
Exercise:
Choose a sad subject - a time of sorrow in your life or someone else's. Write a few lines of poetry based on this subject, implementing words with long OH, OO, and AH sounds. Following the example of Coleridge's work, add some L and N sounds.
Next, choose a happier subject - maybe a family time or interesting nature experience. Write several lines of poetry on this subject, using words with AY, EE, and I sounds. Try adding a generous number of quick-sounding consonants: S, T, P, and NG.
Movement will become a natural part of your poetry as you practice combining all the techniques we have discussed: active verbs, action-oriented nouns, enjambment, line and stanza breaks, tempo, and emotional sounds. And the next time you read a poem that strikes you as emotion filled, you will easily recognize the sound elements that contribute to the feelings.
Get a move on - write some motion-filled poetry today!
Staff Editor Patty Zion welcomes your editing questions and comments. You may reach her by e-mail at