Sounds of a Summer Evening

Posted on June 3, 2022 by purplepeninportland 
Written for:  dVerse Poets Pub - MTB with dissonance
(posted by Bjorn)

"Poets usually strive to make a poem easy and pleasant to read, and often those tools are based on vocal harmonies, through the meter, rhyme, assonance, or consonance.

Creating dissonance is harder than we may think as we naturally want to sound pleasant, but today we will try to do the opposite. If it helps try to describe something unpleasant, to write off your anger, sorrow or angst."

A few ways to do this.

- Break up assonance by using all different vowels you could.
- Break up the meter, and make your poem stumble on two left feet.
- Use harsh consonants, putting some firework in your verse.


In soft summer evening
Boom! Crack! Lightning
streaks violet and egg-yolk
yellow.  Sky screeches.
Rain slams windows.
I jump.  Now 
in dimmed evening
lights flicker, threaten.
Darkness deep and thick
blots out world.

https://dversepoets.com/

About purplepeninportland

I am a freelance poet, born and bred in Brooklyn, New York. I live with my husband, John, and two charming rescue dogs–Marion Miller and Murphy. We spent eight lovely years in Portland, OR, but are now back in New York. My goal is to create and share poetry with others who write, or simply enjoy reading poetry. I hope to touch a nerve in you, and feel your sparks as well.
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11 Responses to Sounds of a Summer Evening

  1. Misky says:
    June 4, 2022 at 7:58 am

    I love this!

    Like

  2. lynn__ says:
    June 4, 2022 at 6:01 pm

    I enjoy watching a good thunderstorm but it doesn’t make for peaceful evening!

    Like

  3. Laura Bloomsbury says:
    June 5, 2022 at 9:33 am

    lots of lovely staccato to break the rhythm –
    “Rain slams windows.
    I jump”

    Like

  4. memadtwo says:
    June 5, 2022 at 1:02 pm

    We’ve had quite a bit of that weather lately. Definite dissonance, (k)

    Like

  5. Björn Rudberg (brudberg) says:
    June 5, 2022 at 3:59 pm

    The discord of a thunderstorm can disrupt so much,

    Like

  6. Susi Bocks says:
    June 16, 2022 at 1:26 am

    Great rhythm in this piece, Sarah. 🙂

    Like

Comments are closed.