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In the face of this relentless information storm, this is no time for Christians to give up on reading. We need to equip ourselves to weather this information storm, and The Fellowship of Ailbe wants to help.
We have seen that among the aspects of a work of literature which identify it as poetry are a certain employment of form, rhythm, rhyme, and image.
But the uniqueness of poetry is not completed by these. Other devices are available to the poet to help enrich the texture, enjoyment, and meaning of his verse. They’re a bit like a lady’s jewelry: One must use them tastefully lest they create an atmosphere of gaudiness around the poem. One wants them to be noticed, but not to steal the show.
Here I’d like to mention just a few of these baubles, bangles, and bright shiny beads.
Jewels that sound
Some of the jewels of a poem are intended to heighten or even guide the experience of the reading by the well-crafted use of sounds. Not that the reader hears the sounds always. Sometimes its best if the sound sneaks into the reader’s experience under the radar. Then they can create unconscious effects which, upon a second reading can become more noticeable and delightful.
Consonance is the use of repeated consonantal sounds in close proximity. The effect of this can vary. For example, note the use of the repeated “w” sound in this line from a forthcoming creational theology installment:
The river’s north fork wound its wandering way...
Can you feel how this use of consonance—those three w’s—wants to slow the reader down? And there’s a reason for this: I intend to use “sound words”—the use of which is called onomatopoeia—in the line after the next, and I don’t want the reader to miss them. Here are the three lines together:
The river’s north fork wound its wandering way
right past our camp site. All throughout the night
its trickles, plops, and scurries soothed and called
me...
Another use of onomatopoeia, combined with a brief bit of consonance, heightens the sound of the shallow river a bit further on:
The sound of shallow water and the sight
of it, as it would rush and plash and play…
Assonance is the use of similar vowel sounds set close to one another. Here’s an example from the opening line of our historical theology segment on Lives of Irish Saints:
What else but love can set a man to such
a thankless task?
Did you hear those short “a” sounds? I find that the effects of assonance are not as strong as those of consonance; but at least because they rhyme, they can increase the musical value of a poem.
Structural jewels
Also among the bright shiny beads of poetry are certain other devices which I might lump under the heading, structural, for their use occurs within the framework and form of the poem to mark a kind of departure from the rest of the structure.
For example, the use of apostrophe, can change the focus of a poem, sometimes briefly but at other times for some length. In apostrophe the poet, whom we think of as speaking to us, turns to someone else or even some thing and directs his address to it. Here’s an example from our creational theology series on Ephrem the Syrian’s series of hymns entitled The Pearl. This is from Hymn 3:
O radiant pearl, of Light a token,
of holy, glorious Light a womb,
of Jesus you have clearly spoken
to point to life beyond the tomb.
The Kingdom’s beauty in your swirl
of Light is seen, O radiant pearl!
These lines are part of an extended apostrophe within the larger structure of the seven hymns. Almost every stanza of Hymn 3 is directed to the pearl, pleading with it to reveal more of Jesus to Ephrem.
We see an example of apostrophe right at the beginning of Homer’s Iliad, here translated by Alexander Pope and incorporated into our study of Homer’s poem in “A World That Never Almost Was”, a series of the InVerse Theology Project in creational theology:
“Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber’d, heav’nly Goddess, sing!”
We experience the poet looking up to his muse before he then turns his attention to us.
Internal rhyme is rhyme that happens within lines rather than at the end. Internal rhymes help to strengthen the music of a poem. In the same study of Iliad we offered this line to comment on the theme Homer established at the beginning: the wrath of Achilles and, by extension, of the warring armies:
Here is the theme of this great epic: wrath
unbridled, rage unchecked, war’s dreadful path
long trod, where heroes fought and plain men died,
‘til vain men’s rage and lust were satisfied.
Here’s another example from the introduction to our historical theology study of Patrick’s Confession, from our InVerse Theology historical theology series, “Celtic Flame: The Burden of Patrick”:
...to feed the few
among them who confessed the Lord and do
whatever could be done to win the rest.
Palladius was this cleric’s name, and blessed
by Pope Celestine...
Parallelism is a structural device used throughout the book of psalms. In English poetry parallelism is perhaps most obviously visible in a villanelle, a poem of six stanzas—five tercets and one quatrain—and nineteen lines (typically, iambic pentameter or tetrameter) with a rhyme scheme involving two sounds only. In a villanelle, the first and last lines of the first tercet are repeated throughout the poem, sometimes in slightly varied forms, and then end the poem as a couplet. Here’s a poem entitled, “Loose Me!” based on John 11.44. This is from a forthcoming practical theology series on “Calling”. Listen as you read, for the parallel lines and any other poetic devices, such as metaphor, simile, consonance, apostrophe, or assonance:
Loose Me!
“Loose him, and let him go.” John 11.44
O loose me, Jesus! Jesus, set me free
from all that binds my soul and blinds my way.
Unwrap the shrouds of death that cling to me!
Let every shade of doubt enlightened be,
the gloom of night bathed with the light of day.
O loose me, Jesus! Jesus, set me free!
Roll back the stone of death and let me see
the beauty in Your face—my hope, my stay!
Unwrap the shrouds of death that cling to me!
Let all confusion and uncertainty
by glory’s light illumined be, I pray—
O loose me Jesus! Jesus, set me free!
Make every shadow of corruption flee;
let sin’s grave clothes no longer on me weigh.
Unwrap the shrouds of death that cling to me!
That all Your grace may shine full radiantly
to light my soul and make my will obey,
O loose me, Jesus! Jesus, set me free;
unwrap the shrouds of death that cling to me!
When I read a villanelle, I feel like I’m winding our clock. The repeated lines and rhymes seem to get tighter and express more tension the further in I go, until everything wraps up in the ending quatrain.
Additional poetic devices with which poets might adorn their poems include alliteration (repeated sounds occurring in close proximity) and synecdoche (using a part to represent the whole, as when “heart” is used to stand for the entirety of the soul).
When reading poetry, expect to come across many of these baubles, bangles, and bright shiny things. Let them bring added vividness and delight to your reading of verse.
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T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore
In the face of this relentless information storm, this is no time for Christians to give up on reading. We need to equip ourselves to weather this information storm, and The Fellowship of Ailbe wants to help.