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The
language of poetry – Assonance
Assonance has been defined as ‘rudimentary rhyme’, and there used
to be rules about where it could be used. Most of poetry’s music comes
from assonance rather than the more often noted alliteration. Open any good
recent anthology, or read anything by Shakespeare, and hear
the assonance sing. Listen for the echoes, not just at line-endings but anywhere
in a poem. For poetry’s purpose ‘w’ and ‘y’ count as
vowel sounds (as they do in Welsh), as well as all the long, short and combined
sounds the
five vowels make. ‘O, wild west wind, thou breath of autumn’s being’,
sings Shelley, and you hear the wind, especially in the first five words. There
are words made
of nothing but assonant sounds. Add a little punctuation, a sigh and some dramatic
expression and you can hold a conversation or write a silly poem using only
assonance. Try it with:
Where? Why, oh why? Away. Oh, woe! You. I. We? Aye! Aaah!
In a poem about the poor a hundred years ago breaking stones to sell to the
road builders I repeat one main assonant sound: the long ‘o’ of ‘bones’,
because ‘O’ is full of sorrow and suffering. I add a long ‘a’
in ‘aching’ and ‘breaking’, short sounds in ‘picking’,
‘swishing’, ‘tarmac’, ‘track’, and much more,
for these are the games that
poets play.
Breaking Stones
Out in the dusk
day after day
breaking stones,
summer and winter,
aching bones.
Nothing but dirt-tracks,
nothing but muddy ruts
for a horse and cart,
till they smashed stones
to smithereens.
Under the country lanes
where we dawdle in summer
picking blackberries,
swishing at nettles with sticks,
are their broken stones.
Under the tarmac of every road,
every motorway,
lie the old tracks
and the stones they broke,
the stones they sold.
Winter and summer
stones for bread,
and bread for stones,
till their old bones ached
from breaking stones.
This article first appeared in emagazine, Issue 8, April 2000