Sound Effects

Want to make your poem literally sound cool? Consider using these techniques:

--Using the same sound at the beginning of a few words (alliteration). Ashley’s aunt ate apples. Usually you don’t do it that much though! Just two or three words.

--Using the same vowel sounds (assonance). Only those who know are blessed. Arrive in style! And yes, this is similar to internal rhyme.

Here is Alfred Noyes in The “Highwayman”:

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.  

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.  

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,  

And the highwayman came riding—

         Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

“Ghostly galleon” and “road was a ribbon” alliterate. “Highwayman came riding” is assonance.

And that leads to another technique: repetition. Obviously, “riding” repeats several times here. Repetition adds not only emphasis but it sounds cool!

Finally: silence and pause. Your line breaks should do a lot of this for you. You can also add space WITHIN the line. You can do this literally, by adding white space, or you can put two hard sounds back to back, forcing a pause. Think about which part of your poems you want to be quiet, and add space or line breaks there!

The other part of sound is rhythm. See that section for a discussion of how those sound effects work.