This week We are starting off our blog by sharing links for three new magazines on the scene that provide publishing opportunities for poets. Two of the publications, Only Poems and SWIMM Every Day, are on the publishing platform Substack. The third, New Verse News, is on Blogspot. Take note that Swwimm only publishes work by women. Although these magazines will try to entice you to support them by becoming a paid subscriber, you don’t have to subscribe to submit. But do read them, do decide whether they might be a good home for your work. Here are their links. Check them out.
Writing Prompt
It’s snowing, freezing in many places around the USA and around the world. I take a walk in my neighborhood and notice sound is different in a snowstorm. I hear the crunch of my footsteps, the thud of a snow clump falling from a tree branch, the scraping of a snow shovel. No car engines. No beeping construction trucks today. The morning is quiet.
Sound, one of the six senses, is a powerful writing tool. This winter week in January, think about the following seven ways to integrate sound into your poetry and prose and then put them to use.
Rhyme
The matching of identical or similar word endings was once a requirement, in some poems. Now public opinion has swayed in the opposite direction, and some publications specifically will not publish rhyming poetry. It all depends, which way your mind bends. Rhyme can add emphasis and shading to both poetry and prose and can also elicit humor.
Rhythm
The manipulation of syllabic patterns in a passage, can add intensity and create suspense. A line of poetry or prose, rhythmically pleasing is a joy to read. Writing prose, sentence by sentence, experiment with how different words and word sequences with varying syllable length can change the impact of your writing.
Consonance
The name sounds like consonants and its meaning refers to repetition of consonants — specifically, those at the ends of words: The injured steed stayed on the ground and I stroked his head.
Onomatopoeia
A long fancy sounding term,onomatopoeia refers to words that are sound effects. Can you find words that concurrently indicate meaning while also mimicking a sound? Here are two examples: The cock-a-doodle doo of the rooster woke me up at six. The clanging pots annoyed everyone.
Repetition
Repetition is the repeating of a word or phrase. When used adeptly it will create a structure or pattern that adds emphasis to the desired meaning of a passage. Remember “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe? The first stanza goes:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Alliteration
Alliteration, two or more words within a phrase or sentence that begin with the same sound, can add shading, emphasis and lyricism. Alliteration can be delivered two ways: consecutively delivered as with deep and daring or spread out within a sentence, promises can be painful and keeping up with party invitations practical.
Assonance
Assonance as with Consonance relies on repetition of a letter in the alphabet. In this case, instead of a consonant it is a vowel. The use of repetitive vowel sounds can be powerful in both a phrase or an entire paragraph. We who must not see the bees hiding in the trees look on bended knee for the lost honey.
We close with a winter poem by William Carlos Williams.
Blizzard
BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
1883-1963
Snow:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down —
the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the sun! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes —
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there —
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.
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