How to get Ready for Questions about Poetry on the Oral Skills

Poetry is one of the common questions assessed in English paper one under the Oral Skills part. I believe it is about time we finally face the elephant in the room, laying bare facts and demystifying poetry, which remains a thorn in the flesh for many learners of literature in English.

A lady reciting a poem before an audience

In this post, I hope to ensure that students can:

a) Recognize what sound patterns/mnemonic devices are.

b) Correctly answer poetry questions

b) Recognize the significance of sound patterns in poetry.

Here are some of the frequently raised questions on English national test papers that I will be answering in this article; be sure to read between the lines.

i. Recognize rhyming word pairs

ii. Create a rhyme system based on the poetry provided.

iii. How would you say a specific line(s) from a poem?

iv. In a given poetry, how is rhythm achieved?

Poems tested under the Oral Skills section in English paper one have a greater emphasis on performance, word/sentence stress and intonation, as well as sound components such as consonants and vowels, rather than content, which is tested in English paper two in Kenya.

It is no longer a secret that one of the common parts of poetry that applicants must prepare for before taking a poetry exam on paper is one on sound pattern, commonly known as Mnemonic devices.

What exactly are Sound Based Stylistic/Mnemonic Devices

These are stylistic elements that, when used in a poem, aid in the creation of musical effect and rhythm. Poets automatically select words with lovely sounds and arrange them in such a way that syllables near each other harmonize in a sound, which is known as word music.

Poets may modify this word music in the same line to suit their message, so that the sound made in lines enhances the message, assisting in making the poetry meaning clearer in their work.

Verbal music is dependent not only on the musical sound of words but also on rhythm. The music of poetry is created by combining exquisite rhythms with sweet-sounding phrases. Sound-based stylistic devices, sometimes known as mnemonic devices, include the following:

Rhyming/rhyming words
The use of alliteration
Assonance
Consonance
Onomatopoeia
Ideophone

Let us now analyze each of the mnemonic devices listed below.

1.Rhyme/Rhyming Words

Rhyme is the matching of two or more words' final sounds.

As an example,

River, Shiver

Song, Long

Leap, and Deep

Poets employ rhyme to give their verses a song-like aspect and to emphasize specific phrases and concepts. End rhymes or rhyming words appear at the end of many traditional-style poetry.

Let us look at William Blake's poetry The Tiger.

In what distant deep or skies,

Burnt the fire of thine eye?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

The following are the end rhymes or rhyming words from the above poem:

Skies/eye aspire/fire

Internal rhyme happens when the rhyme occurs within a line.

Let us look at a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

The wedding Guest he beat his breast…

It's worth noting that the phrases Guest and breast rhyme.

Guest/breast

Another example is a sentence from the passage 'Annabel Lee' by Edgar Allan Poe.

‘For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of beautiful Annabel Lee.’

Take note of the inbuilt rhyming of the terms, beams and dreams.

Approximate rhyme is rhyme in which only final consonant sounds of the words are identical as opposed to exact rhyme. Cook/look is an exact rhyme, but cook/lack is an approximate rhyme.

1st Assignment

Read and identify the rhyming words in the following Alfred, Lord Tennyson poems.

Ring, Wild Bells!

‘Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky

The flying cloud, the frosty light

The year is dying in the night

Ring out, wild bells. And let him die’

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

In lonely lands, close to the sun,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Another popular question evaluated within rhyming is rhyme scheme.

What exactly is a rhyming scheme?

It refers to a poem's regular rhythm of rhyming words. A poem's rhyme system is expressed by lowercase alphabet letters, and the same letters are assigned to words with equivalent rhyme.

Let us now look at the poems below.

Edwin Arlington Robinson's' Dark Hills

Dark hills at evening in the west a

Where sunset hovers like a sound b

Of golden horns that sang to rest a

Old bones of warriors under ground, b

Far now from all the banned ways c

Where flash the legions of the sun d

You fade – as if the last of days c

Were fading, and all wars were done. d

The given poem has a regular rhyme scheme of ababcdcd.

William Blake's The Sick Rose.

O Rose, thou art sick! a

The invisible worm b

That flies in the night, c

In the howling storm d

Has found out thy bed d

Of crimson joy: f

And his dark secret love g

Does thy life destroy. f

The rhyme system in the preceding poem is abcd efgf.

It's worth noting that there are two kinds of rhyming schemes.

Regular rhyme scheme refers to when there is a pattern or system so that one can guess what the next pattern will be even without viewing the next stanza of the poem. The rhyming scheme of 'Dark Hills' by Edwin Arlington Robinson is ababcdcd, which is regular and so predictable.

Irregular rhyming scheme is a scheme that lacks a system or a pattern, making it unpredictable. This scheme cannot be predicted because it is not systematic. The rhyme scheme in William Blake's poem 'The Sick Rose' is abcd efgf, which is irregular and thus unexpected.

Assignment number two.

Read the poetry below and respond to the questions that follow.

William Blake's A Poison Tree.

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath; my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears:

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright.

And my foe beheld it shine

And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Question

1. Identify the rhyming words in the poem.

2. Create a rhyme system based on the poem A Poison Tree.

2. Alliteration

It refers to the repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants or consonants clusters, in a group of words within a line in a poem. Sometimes it is limited to the repetition of initial consonants sounds. When alliteration occurs at the start of a word, it is referred to as initial alliteration; when it happens within a word, it is referred to as internal or concealed alliteration.
It is worth noting that alliteration occurs in the stressed syllabus whereas the same words do not.

Let us now consider a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan.'

‘Five miles meandering with a mazy motion’

Further Alliteration Examples

‘The fair breeze below, the white foam flew

The furrow followed free.’

Coleridge, Samuel.

‘I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore.’

William Butler Yeats

‘A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire.’

Chesterton

3.Assonance

It refers to the repeated use of similar vowel sounds within various words in the same line.

Examine 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' by John Keats.

‘Thou foster child of silence and slow time.’

Task

Identify an instance of assonance in the following line.

‘So twice five miles of fertile ground.’

4.Consonance

It is the repeating of identical consonant sounds inside a series of words. It can also refer to the repeating of consonant sounds in the midst or at the end of words in a poem line.

Examine Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'.

‘And all the air a solemn stillness holds.’

Sometimes the term is used for slant rhyme or partial rhyme where the initial and final consonants are the same but the vowel different.

As an example,

Litter/letter green/groan

5. Onomatopoeic

It refers to the use of English words whose sound imitates or suggests their meaning in some way. It is also possible to define it simply as English words that sound like the noises they present.

Some bird names, for example, are Onomatopoetic, meaning they replicate the call of the bird named.

As an example,

Cuckoo

Whippoorwill

Owl

Towhee

Bobwhite

Another example is hiss. Clank, rustling, thud, crash, cry, whistle, buzz, and snap are all examples of sounds.

Examine 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' in which Coleridge recreates the terrifying noises of the country of ice:

‘It cracked and growled, and roared and howled

Like noises in a sound’’

Line 61-62

Are you able to identify onomatopoeic words after reading the lines? I'm guessing you've identified the terms cracked, snarled, roared, and howled as onomatopoeic words.

3rd Assignment

Examine the poetry below and then identify the Onomatopoeia words that appear in it.

The Engine's Song by H. Benison Worseley's

With a snort and a pant, the engine dragged

Its heavy train uphill,

And puffed these words the while she puffed

And labored with a will:

‘I think -I can-I think -I can-,

I’ve got-to reach -the top

I’m sure -I can -I will -get there

I simply must not stop.’

At last the top was reached and passed,

And then now changed the song

The wheels all joined the engine’s joy,

As quickly she tore a long!

‘I knew I could do it, I knew I could win,

Oh, rickety, rackety, rack!

And now for a roaring rushing race

On my smooth and shining track!’

6. Ideophone

They are referring to the actual noises that are created. In contrast to Onomatopoeia, which are English words that imitate sounds, ideophone represents the true, real sound as it is made.

Ideophone Examples

Mmmh

Hmmm

Uuiuui

Khai

Task

Determine which of the four words listed below fits under Ideophone and Onomatopoeia.

Cows moos moo-oo

Cats Mia-uuu mews

It is crucial to note that repetition is not a sound stylistic device, but it serves to create rhythm in a poem alongside mnemonic devices/sound patterns, line length, and other factors. Also, the question regarding which word to emphasize in a poem line is readily resolved if we understand that we only emphasize content words because they have meaning.

Furthermore, the issue of how you will recite a specific line in a poem touches on performance. Knowledge of nonverbal clues such as facial expressions and gestures, as well as verbal cues such as intonation and stress, will be useful in this situation. A student, on the other hand, must specify how they will use them.

A learner, for example, can state

While performing the phrase... I would employ suitable facial expressions, such as a sad/happy/serious expression while saying the words in the line.

When sound patterns/mnemonic devices are employed in a poetry, they generally aid to bring out the following from the poem.

i. Improve the rhythm

ii.Improve musicality

iii.Reiterate the poem's message.

iv. Make a mood

v. Make it easier to remember.

I hope you found this useful, and please stay tuned for our next topic. Thank you, and please feel free to leave a comment.