Shelf
I’ve written before about how my poems can sometimes take many years to write. My process is improvisational — I will often edit many poems at once when I sit down to work — but conceptually it can be broken down into three broad phases or modes:
Finding, where I play with an idea or phrase until it either falls apart or comes alive. (Not every idea or phrase turns into a poem, so I think of this as ‘finding’ a poem.)
Forming, where I write many drafts, until it feels like the poem has found its natural shape (in terms of length and number of stanzas) and content (in terms of what it’s trying to say).
Finalizing, where I focus on specific word choices, trying to enhance the music and mood of the poem.
Today I thought we’d chat about two components of word choice — rhyming and alliteration — using this poem as an example:
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On a shelf in my home sit an old shard of bone and an odd stone shaped by the sea. These serve well to remind of the many ties that bind and the ways the world has shaped me.
I don’t always rhyme so strongly in my poetry. But this poem was inspired by a couple of items sitting on a shelf in my study, the kinds of things we acquire absentmindedly on a hike or while walking the beach and then keep with us for a long time, displaying them prominently to ourselves in our own private spaces, though we may not be consciously aware of why we do so. Exploring that question called for something sing-songy that feels really good to say out loud, almost like an old nursery rhyme that could have been with me since childhood.
Poetry Nerd Time! 🤓
This poem has an obvious A-A-B C-C-B rhyme scheme: home, bone, sea, remind, bind, me. But, more subtly, I felt it called for strong consonance (the repetition of consonant sounds), and assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds) — things I frequently gravitate toward in the finalizing phase, when choosing between optional words.
In this poem we have the ‘s’ and ‘sh’ sounds, which I like and typically treat as a single consonant: shelf, sit, shard, stone, shaped, sea, these, serve, ties, ways, has, shaped. Almost the whole poem is right there in those words. And I specifically enjoy muddling consonants, by blurring the end of one word phonetically into the next: “… these serve…” and “… has shaped…”. I find it adds a sense of relaxation and flow.
When I want a poem to have a certain weight — a formality that makes it feel as if it’s been around a long time — I will intentionally try to build an extremely strong alliterative rhythm in the first half or so, and then break it unexpectedly, to evoke a subconscious emotional reaction. I’ll then return to the rhythm at the end, to create a sense of closure.
In the first stanza here, for example, we focus on assonance with ‘o’ sounds: on, home, old, bone, odd, stone. Then for two lines we break that focus and try to minimize ‘o’ sounds (‘to’ and ‘of’ are necessary, but their ‘ooo’ and ‘uhh’ sounds don’t register the same, and they sort of disappear). Instead, we switch to long ‘i’ assonance: remind, ties, bind. Then, in the last line, ‘ways’ and ‘world’ bring a new consonance, adding interest, with ‘world’ also subtly returning us to the round ‘o’ assonance of the first stanza, providing closure.
All of this effort is easier to see (and hear) if we take the same poem, in the same basic form, and say all the same things, but completely ignore alliteration and rhyme:
On a shelf in my house I keep a piece of bone and a weird rock shaped by the ocean. These remind me of all the connections in my life and the ways I've been molded by them.
Very similar sentiment and format, but — for me, anyway — far less musical, evocative, and effective.
Okay! If you enjoyed any of that, then you definitely belong here, reading my little poetry newsletter. 🤣
Are there any word choice decisions you particularly appreciate when writing or reading poetry? I’d love to hear in the comments.
Thanks, as always, for reading,
~ A
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