It’s become an opening day tradition for me to post my Baseball Sonnet on Opening Day. So, to honor that tradition–and to mark the start of the Major League Baseball Season, here it is:
Baseball Sonnet
That time of year thou mayst in fans behold That malediction, fever of the spring– Surrounded by lingering snow and cold, We dream of pennants and World Series rings. With pride we root our noble heroes on, Eating hot dogs, peanuts, and crackerjacks– And all our worldly troubles fade, are gone, When that first pitch is thrown and bat doth crack. But Lo! When April fades to crueler months, We reach the summer of our discontent– Like Mighty Casey in the Mudville ninth– With hearts bereft of joy and merriment. Yet hope springs eternal for one and all, When that blue-clad umpire calls out, “Play Ball!”
–A. A. Rubin
If you enjoy baseball and literature, check out the series of Spring Training books which I’ve been posting on Instagram.
Enjoy your opening day, the one day of the year when hope springs eternal.
Happy #OpeningDay and #NationalPoetry month. Continuing a tradition I’ve established over the last few years, here is my “Baseball Sonnet” to mark the occasion. Play ball!
Baseball Sonnet
by A. A. Rubin
That time of year thou mayst in fans behold That malediction, fever of the spring– Surrounded by lingering snow and cold, We dream of pennants and World Series rings. With pride we root our noble heroes on, Eating hot dogs, peanuts, and crackerjacks– And all our worldly troubles fade, are gone, When that first pitch is thrown and bat doth crack. But Lo! When April fades to crueler months, We reach the summer of our discontent– Like Mighty Casey in the Mudville ninth– With hearts bereft of joy and merriment. Yet hope springs eternal for one and all, When that blue-clad umpire calls out, “Play Ball!”
This year, opening day of the baseball season happens to fall on the first day of National Poetry Month. In honor of these two concurrent occasions, I present my poem, “Baseball Sonnet”.
Baseball Sonnet
That time of year thou mayst in fans behold That malediction, fever of the spring Surrounded by lingering snow and cold, We dream of pennants and World Series rings. With pride we root our noble heroes on Eating hot dogs, peanuts, and crackerjacks And all our worldly troubles fade, are gone When that first pitch is thrown and bat doth crack But Lo! When April fades to crueler months, We reach the summer of our discontent Like Mighty Casey in the Mudville ninth With hearts bereft of joy and merriment Yet hope springs eternal for one and all, When that blue-clad umpire calls out, “Play Ball!”
Since I posted this poem last year as well (I hope to make it an annual tradition). Here are some links to some of my favorite baseball poems by other poets:
Also, be sure to check out my reading of baseball poetry, which will be my first in a series of reading for National Poetry Month, later today on my Instagram page.
Today is (finally) opening day of the 2020 baseball season. Back on March 26th, I published a baseball sonnet here, and people seemed to like it. So today, on day that, traditionally, symbolizes hope, I present a couple of more baseball poems I’ve written to help get you in the mood for upcoming season.
The first poem is a “golden shovel” poem after the line “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” from the greatest baseball poem of all time, “Casey At The Bat,” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. For those who are unaware, golden shovel is a form of poetry wherein the poet takes a line or stanza from a famous poem, and uses the borrowed words as the end-words of each line of the new poem.
Opening Day A Golden Shovel after Ernest Lawrence Thayer
There is one day each year when every team has hope Which rises like a fever; in our hearts it springs Recurring, eternal Each year down in The land of grapefruits and cacti it grows like the First crocus incongruously purple in the snow. Until that day when it thaws the cold human Heart and lets hope—at least for one day—spring, again, eternal in the human breast
The second poem is describes an at bat.
The Strikeout
The bend of the arm, Like the crack of the whip That ball is on him, Quick, quick, quick–
The fastball zips by, A shot from a gun– The batter swings through it, Whiff—Strike one–
The ball is released, The same as before. The batter gears up, To offer once more–
But here t h e B a l l B e n d s It d r o p s to the dirt– The curve ball has fooled him, He almost got hurt.
0-2 is the count, And one he will waste: Though he started his cut, The batter checked it with haste
Now here comes the next pitch. Thrown true and straight– The batter swings quickly, So he won’t be late–
Midway through his hack, Oh no! does he sing, The pitcher has tricked him, By p – u – l – l – i – n – g – t – h -e – s – t – r – i – n – g
He tries to hold up, But he can not, you see– Fooled by the change-up, He’s swung through, strike three.
And, because people seemed to enjoy it last time, here is the sonnet I posted on what was originally supposed to be opening day:
That time of year thou mayst in fans behold That malediction, fever of the spring Surrounded by lingering snow and cold, We dream of pennants and World Series rings. With pride we root our noble heroes on Eating hot dogs, peanuts, and crackerjacks And all our worldly troubles fade, are gone When that first pitch is thrown and bat doth crack But Lo! When April fades to crueler months, We reach the summer of our discontent Like Mighty Casey in the Mudville ninth Our hearts bereft of joy and merriment Yet hope springs eternal for one and all, When that blue-clad umpire calls out, “Play Ball!”
Today, March 26, was supposed to be opening day of the 2020 baseball season. The season has been postponed due to the coronavirus, and, of course, that is the right thing to do. Still, I am missing baseball, especially today, a day that, traditionally, symbolizes hope, something that many of us need right now.
To mark the day, and try to tap into some of that “hope springs eternal” energy, I am posting a sonnet that I wrote in honor of opening day a few years ago. I hope it brings you joy on this day and reminds you of how you would be feeling on this day, at the start of any other baseball season.
That time of year thou mayst in fans behold That malediction, fever of the spring Surrounded by lingering snow and cold, We dream of pennants and World Series rings. With pride we root our noble heroes on Eating hot dogs, peanuts, and crackerjacks And all our worldly troubles fade, are gone When that first pitch is thrown and bat doth crack But Lo! When April fades to crueler months, We reach the summer of our discontent Like Mighty Casey in the Mudville ninth Our hearts bereft of joy and merriment Yet hope springs eternal for one and all, When that blue-clad umpire calls out, “Play Ball!”
Be sure to check out the links page to read some of my published writing, and to follow me on twitter and facebook.
Happy world poetry day! Here are some places where you can read my poetry, both online and in print:
My latest published poem, Earth 2022, was recently published in The Deronda Review. You can read it for free here on page 27, right after a poem by Pablo Neruda:
The poem is in the tradition of the Wordsworth poem, London, 1802, and critiques the current state of education.
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You can also read my gothic horror poem, The Widow’s Walk, which was published in Love Letters to Poe, here. The webpage includes an interview and a link to an episode of the publication’s podcast, which features me reading the poem.
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The Patchwork Man, one of my favorite poems, was published earlier this year in Poetica, from Clarendon House. The book is available on Amazon.
Today is my birthday. For one year at least, I have become the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. What’s the best present you can give an author on his birthday? Read his work. Luckily, I have some new publishing news to report. I have work in two anthologies you can buy, and a free poem online as well.
My story “The Forgotten” is included in the Remnants shared world anthology from Kyanite Press. Remnants presents a post-apocalyptic world overrun by two different types of monsters. Each of the stories, written by a different author, takes place in the same universe. It’s a really interesting collection, and there is such diversity in the stories that, if you’re a fan of sci-fi, horror, or post-apocalyptic fiction on any stripe, there’s something in there for you.
My story, “The Forgotten” deals with a group of orphans who have banded together to fight the monsters. It’s a dark psychological tale that celebrates the power of childlike imagination even in the darkest times. Here is the opening paragraph to whet your appetite.
For the third year in a row, I have flash fiction in the Serious Flash Fiction anthology. This anthology, is one of my favorites. Each year on twitter, The editor, runs a contest to find the best tweet-length stories. Once again, my work was selected among the winners. This is one of my favorite anthologies each year, and I have discovered some of my favorite writers through this competition as well. The anthology also collects the previous years’ winning entries, so, if you buy the book, you’ll get my microflash from previous years as well.
The Serious Flash Fiction Anthology
While the previous two publications are for purchase, I also have a present for you on my birthday. My high fantasy ballad, Forthwith Flies The Mage, a long narrative, poem about a mage and his dragon battling the forces of darkness is now available for free as part of the “Healing Worlds” project from Kyanite Press. It is one my favorite pieces, and if you enjoy fantasy in the mode of JRR Tolkien or Ursula Le Guin, I know you’ll enjoy it.
Be sure to connect on facebook, twitter, and instagram, and let me know what you think in the comments.
One of the most effective ways for writers to improve their craft is to read intentionally. But, what does reading intentionally really mean? To me, when I read as a writer, I observe the way the other uses craft–either on the macro or the micro level, and see if there are any techniques or strategies I can incorporate into my own writing. I don’t always read like this, as it distracts, to some extent, from my ability to fully immerse myself in a story for pleasure, but, reading (or watching or listening, depending on the medium) for craft not only is an important part of my writing practice, but also has allowed me to get something out of almost anything I read, even if it is something which I would not–or do not–otherwise enjoy. It is especially important for a writer to read broadly and outside of their genre, as casting a wide net exposes one to a wider array or strategies and techniques.
In this series of articles, I will write about one element of craft I learned from a specific writer. Of course, in most cases, I learned more than one technique from each author, but for the purpose of this series of articles, I will focus on just one per post.
As with my Rules What Rules series, I will list previous entries at the top of each post, as while I plan on writing many of these, they, most likely, will not be in consecutive posts.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM Star Wars: Organic World Building
Happy Star Wars Day! The original Star Wars trilogy stands as the pinnacle of space opera and science fiction storytelling. It is a masterpiece in so many ways, has permeated pop culture like few other genre franchises, and it is, along with The Lord of The Rings, is one of my original fandoms. Today, May the Fourth, is Star Wars Day, a day to celebrate the franchise, and as it is also the day on which I post my blog. As I’ve been doing a “What I Learned From…” series recently, it is the perfect day to write about what I learned from the original Star Wars trilogy. It is difficult to pick only one thing. I could easily have written this article about adapting archetypes (monomyth, Oresteia) or how to write successful banter, but I’ve decided to write about world building, as the original trilogy does a masterful job of worldbuilding organically (unlike the prequel trilogy, but more on that later), providing the viewer with enough context and information to establish the verisimilitude of the secondary, fantasy world, without committing the all-to-common cardinal sin of over-explaining and info-dumping.
Let’s look at a few lines from the first movie, what I knew as Star Wars growing up, and you kids now call A New Hope.
In the opening scene of the movie, C3PO worries that he and R2D2 will be “sent to the spice mines of Kessel, smashed into who knows what…”
gif of the preceding quote
C3PO says this as if it’s a bad thing. We understand that even though we, as visitors to the movie’s secondary world, don’t know what the spice mines of Kessel are, what spice he’s talking about, why droids would get smashed there, etc. Presumably, R2D2 knows, but we do not. And yet, the line doesn’t break the action of that opening scene. C3P0 who is one of the most verbose characters in the movie, does not go into a lengthy explanation of spice trade, Kessel, etc, he just mentions it quickly, the way someone in that world would actually talk. He does, however, plant an important world building seed that’s developed later in the movie.
Later, when Luke and Obi Wan are in Mos Eisley to hire a spaceship to take them off of Tatooine, they encounter Han Solo in the cantina. Solo boasts that his ship “made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.”
Gif: It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.
What is the Kessel run? Why is Solo using a unit of distance rather than time to brag about his ship’s speed? Again, we don’t know. But we recognize the word “Kessel” from a previous scene. Obviously, this is something people in world know about. Shady things seem to go on there, perhaps related to the aforementioned spice. The writers have added another layer of depth to the world building without descending into lengthy, boring expository backstory.
Despite the lack of backstory, the viewer never feels lost in secondary world. It feels strange to us, which it should as we are but visitors there, but it feels real. Why? Because that is how real people talk. The characters speak like real, in-world people, not history professors.
To explore this premise further, let’s look at Princess Leia’s plea for Ben Kenobi’s help. She says, “years ago, you served my father in the clone wars.”
Gif of previous quote
What are the Clone Wars? Again, we don’t know. But as viewers, we understand that it was a major war in world, which took place in the previous generation. There is no time in this hurried plea for help to explain the backstory–and there is no need. We all understand what this means. Let’s move the dialogue int our world. In 1977, when the movie came out, it might have read, “years ago you served my father in Second World War.” No one, in this parallel situation would go into a lengthy history lesson about World War II. That type of backstory would seem out of place and superfluous. In this secondary world setting, the writers trust the viewer to contextualize this unfamiliar detail by using their own parallel, real-world experience. The result is what makes the world sound authentic. It makes the world–and the characters–seem more, rather than less because it simulates the way real people speak.
The worldbuilding strategy is consistent throughout the first trilogy. Take, for example the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Han and Chewie are trying to fix the Millennium Falcon’s broken hyperdrive. Han says: “Horizontal boosters…! Alluvial dampers…! Well that’s not it. Bring me the hydrospanner!”
Gif: Bring me the hydrospanner!
The audience has no idea what those things are, and yet the dialogue rings true. If a mechanic asks for a socket wrench, he can presume his assistant will know what a socket wrench is without an explanation of how it works or what it’s used for.
Similarly, Vader’s reaction to finding out that Luke had constructed a new lightsaber in Return of the Jedi follows the same world-building strategy.
Gif: I see you have constructed a new lightsaber
Gif: Your skills are complete
The construction of a new lightsaber is, as we can glean from the context of the dialogue, a key milestone in the training of a Jedi, and yet there is no discussion of how one would construct a new lightsaber, what rank this would bestow on Luke, etc. Both Vader and Luke would know this information already and would not need to explain it to each other. All the audience needs to know is that in constructing a new lightsaber, Luke has reached a new level of Jedi skill, a level which has impressed Vader. Anything beyond that takes the audience out of the story.
When someone says, “let’s take the car to the movies,” they don’t go into a lengthy explanation of the workings of the internal combustion engine. It is, in fact, likely, that most people who drive a car have little idea how an internal combustion engine actually works. They do not go into a long polemic about the fossil fuel or climate change (They might give a throwaway line about gas mileage or a brief, glib comment about the extent to which their hybrid is or isn’t saving the earth, but that’s half a line of dialogue at most). They don’t explain the history of the car from the model T to the present time. So why would we expect characters to do similar things in a science fiction setting? The ship will “make .5 past light speed.”
gif of previous quote
How? it doesn’t matter. In a world where FTL travel is the norm, no one would need further explanation. .5 what? There is no unit of measurement. Well, that’s how people really talk. “She’ll go 0-60 in 6 seconds.” There’s no need to say miles per hour. Everyone understands the context.
Star Wars is often criticized for it’s lack of scientific explanation, especially by fans of a certain other popular sci-fi franchise. Yet, I would argue that this makes it a more authentic, more believable world. As soon as you offer an explanation of technological marvel, you both take your reader/viewer out of the world, and give then something to nitpick and start an argument which you can’t possibly win. Yet, doing the worldbuilding obliquely, allows you to drop in the necessary world building information–and even layer it richly–without breaking the spell of verisimilitude by taking your audience out of your secondary world and giving them a change to question their suspension of disbelief It is both effective and realistic.
Notice, too, that this world-building strategy is affected in normal dialogue throughout the movie. None of the lines quoted above are the most famous, most quoted, most meme-able lines in the movie, yet they serve an important, world-building purpose. By integrating the world-building in this fashion, the writers keep the audience in the fast-paced action and fun. The world-building dialogue is like an invisible force which binds the Star Wars galaxy together.
Many later entries in the Star Wars franchise show the other side of the coin. They get bogged down in exposition and explanation, explaining the spice trade, or the way to construct a lightsaber. They try to flesh out the causes of Clone Wars, and codify the method of Jedi training. The prequel trilogy, which has sometimes been criticized as CSPAN for the Imperial Senate–is especially bad in that regard. It abandons the highly effective world building strategy described above, and loses both the fun and the verisimilitude of the original. The effectiveness of the original strategy can be seen in the contrast.
Enough negativity, though. Today is a day of celebration of all things Star Wars.
As writers–especially writers of speculative fiction–verisimilitude and the willing suspension of disbelief are essential to the success of our enterprise (are we allowed to use that word on star wars day?). We should use the original Star Wars trilogy as a paradigm for effective, organic world building which allows us to create rich, secondary worlds without breaking the spell of action and story.
Every year, on the week of his birthday, the comics world celebrates the legacy of Will Eisner. Eisner’s work in the comics field is legendary. From his groundbreaking work in The Spirit newspaper serial (including pioneering the splash title page), to inventing the graphic novel, to his contributions to comics education and analysis through titles like Comics And Sequential Art, to his pioneering of alternate publishing paths, there are few creators who have contributed more to the comics field than Eisner. In honor of Will Eisner Week, I’d like to break down one of my favorite comics pages, which comes from his graphic novel, A Life Force (available in the seminal Contract With God trilogy).
Here is the page:
Page from “A Life Force,” by Will Eisner
You might notice that his is not one of Eisner’s spectacular splash pages, rather it’s a regular storytelling page from the middle of the story, but it’s an incredible bit of visual storytelling where every element serves a purpose.
First, a bit of background: the story is about the human will to live even in the face of the poorest conditions. The human life lived in poverty is compared, through a series of vignettes to that of a cockroach. On this page, our protagonist Jacob, is on the ground, forlorn, in an alley underneath his tenement apartment on the fictional Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx.
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Let’s start with panel 1, which is part of a row of 3/4 of the page-length skinny vertical panels. Despite the length of this panel, the character, Jacob, is drawn small. There is a lot of white space between him and the top of the panel, and there are no word bubbles either, which emphasizes the size of the negative space. The size of the figure relative to the space highlights his smallness and enhances the central conceit of the story, the comparison of the human’s life with that of a bug.
This contrast is further emphasized in panel 2, which is identical in size and shape to the first panel. In this panel, the hand-lettered words call down to him from the sky, high above the alley where the protagonist finds himself. The figure of Jacob is a bit larger than it is in panel 1, though his attitude is slightly changed, as he now gazes up toward the sound of the words (more on this movement later), but the there is less negative space in the panel, both because of the size of the words, which are large for comics dialogue, and because of the lines in the background which extend further up the panel. The words seem to fill the panel, which contrasts it with the emptiness of the one which immediately precedes it.
In addition to being large, the words are unbounded by a speech bubble, further contrasting them with Jacob’s dialogue in the panels immediately preceding and following this one. It is also spoken by an off-panel character (the speaker is not visible in the panel). These physical characteristics of the lettering, along with the repetition of Jacob’s biblical name, give the dialogue a biblical feel and remind the reader of the themes of the search for meaning and humanity’s relationship with the God found throughout the Contract With God trilogy. Since we do not yet know the speaker, we are reminded of God calling down to a prophet. Even when we find out the speaker in the next panel, the idea of God speaking to a human remains in our minds, layered simultaneously with the revelation of the speaker’s true identity. This technique is unique to the sequential story medium (through there are similar techniques in other mediums like the Homeric simile), as it relies both on the distinction between the individual, static panels, and the sequential nature of the story.
In the third panel, the off-panel dialogue is gone, opening up the space of the top half of the panel again. In the bottom half of the panel, the figure of Jacob continues to grow. Not only is he drawn larger, but his pose has changed as well. In panel one, he is hunched over, leaning against a wall, almost lying down. In panel two, he looks upward as he hears the voice. In panel three, he has started to get up. His back is straighter than it is in other panel, and we see his face more clearly as well. This upward movement is further enhanced by the placement of the speech bubble, which identifies the off-panel voice as “Rifka.” His attitude has changed from downcast, to questioning, to at least a neutral pose. This positive shift, along with his growth in size and his rising from his prone position further hints at the divine voice theory. Perhaps there is something god-like in the voice? Perhaps there is revelation? Inspiration? Perhaps there is–or is going to be–a change.
But no. In the final panel of the top row, the dialogue beats Jakob down, both literally and figuratively. It is, in fact, his wife, yelling down from their tenement window at he good-for-nothing husband, exasperated at his antics, and ordering him to come upstairs for supper. The content of the dialogue is enhanced both by the amount of words and by the shape of the panel. The words can hardly fit in the skinny panel, and extend down much further than Rifka’s previous dialogue. The openness of the negative space is gone. The sky is crowded with the words, which beat down on Jakob.
This is also the first panel where both characters speak. Jacob’s words, still bounded by their traditional speech bubble, move upwards over his head, creating a visual conflict with Rifka’s words. From the relative size of the words, it is apparent who is winning. Indeed, despite his agreement to come upstairs for dinner, Eisner draws Jacob a bit smaller, and much more bent over than in the previous panel.
The bottom row of panels is markedly different from the first. There are three distinct actions, but unlike the top row, there are no panel dividers. This gives the sequence a continuous motion where we do not pause as long to consider each image, rather we see the action more continuously.
It is important to note, that though Jacob gets up, he is still bent over, hunched beneath the weight of his problems, bent and nearly broken by his life’s burdens. We never see his face in these panels, and the anonymity of these actions make them synecdochal for the human experience. The bent over poses, the short height of the panels, and the smallness of the door in the final panel recall the metaphor of the cockroach as well, as Jakob seemingly skitters down a narrow passage, back to a hole in the wall.
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In addition to the panel-by-panel storytelling, there page as a whole is constructed brilliantly as well. The four tall, skinny panels on the the top row, recall the Dropsie Avenue tenements. Though there is no establishing shot of the neighborhood on this particular page (that happened earlier in the story), the tall thin shapes resemble high-rise apartments, and the fact that there are four of them squeezed into the top row remind the reader of the crowded, urban setting.
The long length of these panels also pushes down on Jacob, who is hunched beneath their massive weight in the bottom row. This reminds the reader of the environmental factors which contribute to his depression, and further highlight the effects of the setting, which is another key motif which runs through Eisner’s trilogy.
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All-in-all, this page is a masterclass is sequential storytelling, a reminder of the power and possibilities of the comics form, and a strong example of Eisner’s skill both as an artist and writer. I encourage you all to check out or refamiliarize yourself with his work.
I know I will the next time I sit down to write a comics script.
Happy Will Eisner week to you all.
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In the first post I published on this blog, I bemoaned the reductive nature of writing advice. “If you write like everyone else,” I wrote, “your writing will read like everyone else’s.” While I have gotten away from that theme from time-to-time, I try to return to it every now and then as part of my series: Rules: What Rules? which consists of a series of blogs that deal with common pieces of writing advice, and then present a famous work–by a successful author–which breaks those rules. My aim is not to criticize these authors—I enjoy all of them, that is the point. Rather, I present their works as examples of successfully writing, which might cause you to reexamine the writing “rule” critically. I am not advising you to ignore these rules, rather to take control of your own craft, and consider your choices actively. As always, I believe there is more than one path to success, more than one formula for great writing. Consider these posts synecdochally. The specific rule is not the point; it speaks to a general attitude which is prevalent within the contemporary writing community.
In each blog post in this series, I will give a brief summary of the rule, followed by a case study of a successful author, work, or series that breaks that rule. Finally, I will provide some analysis of the rule and the alternative techniques the featured author makes. Since the posts in this series will not necessarily be consecutive blog entries, I will link each piece to previous entries.
The pithy way this rule is usually stated is derived from a 1986 Writers Digest article by Frank L. Visco which took the form of a list of “rules” the author had “learnt” (sic) over the course of his writing career. The article, which has been quoted in numerous places, has been circulated widely, especially in recent years, through meme culture and social media. The statement in question leads off the set of rules, in which the statement of each rule violates the very principle it purports to teach.
While the article is a bit tongue-in-cheek, the rules it professes are, by and large, considered “good” advice by the writing community.
Alliteration, especially when done excessively, is supposed to be distracting. It supposedly takes the reader out of the story and makes them focus on the delivery rather than the content.
And yet…
There is a long tradition of using alliteration in English language literature. In fact, alliteration has been there right from the beginning. Anglo-Saxon epics, such as Beowulf, which is considered by many to be the first foundational text of English literature, is built around an alliterative structure. Seamus Heaney’s landmark verse translation keeps this structure, and his translator’s introduction explains his methods, the anonymous poet’s techniques, and the traditions upon which they both draw better than I ever could.
Shakespeare used alliteration (Love’s Labour Lost, for example), but I’d like to begin our discussion in earnest with a poet from the next generation, Alexander Pope whose poem Sound and Sense is both a poem and an instruction manual for writing poetry. Throughout the sonnet, Pope uses the techniques he wants his reader to learn, most of which have to do with the sound the language make, including alliteration, but also rhythm, meter, assonance, and consonance. These devices are categorized as “sound and sense” devices to this day. In the couplet that gives the poem its title, Pope writes:
‘Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
This couplet states the poem’s argument, which is that the poet–or any writer for that matter–should use their devices in harmony with, or to accentuate the content and/or message, of the piece. Throughout the piece, Pope uses the devices he intends to teach, but does not name them explicitly.
Pope employs alliteration throughout the poem, including in the above-quoted couplet. The leading “S” sound is repeated 3 times in the stanza’s second line, and five times in the next couplet:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
The alliterative sound is not necessarily in consecutive words, which is actually the correct way to write alliteration. As least where poetry is concerned, alliteration is not, as it’s commonly defined the repetition of a sound at the beginning of a word, it’s actually the repetition of that sound on the stressed syllable.
One of my favorite examples comes from Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poem, The Raven:
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
The repeated S sound occurs at the beginning of “silken” and “sad,” but in the middle of “uncertain” and “rustling.” But read the line out loud. Notice how the S sound falls on the stressed syllable, whether it comes at the beginning of the word or not:
AND the SILken, SAD, unCERtain RUStling
If you transpose “silken” and “sad”, the alliteration won’t read as well, first, because of the meter, and secondly, because the alliteration won’t sound as natural.
The reason Poe’s line works so well is that the sound does, indeed, echo the sense. Not only is there an onomatopoeia in the “s” sound, which mimics the curtains rustling in the wind, but the hypnotic use of alliteration combines with the trochaic meter–the opposite of iambic, which is the most common English language meter–highlights the dream-like quality of the encounter (“while I nodded nearly napping”; the nightmarish Raven perched atop the bust of Athena, a symbol of rationality)–to “shush” the reader to that dream state with the repeated, soporific “s” sound.
When I wrote my poem, The Widow’s Walk which was recently published, fittingly, in Love Letters to Poe, I attempted to emulate Poe’s alliterative style. The opening line of the poem reads:
She wends her way around her walk And round and round she goes.
Scanning the opening line, we get:
she WENDS her WAY aROUND her WALK
The alliterative “w” sound is used on the stressed syllable (although I use iambic rather than trochaic meter in this poem.)
Some might say that alliteration is an antiquated device found mostly in older poems (and poems like mine which pay homage to them), but modern poets use alliteration prominently as well.
In her poem, Fugue, from her new book, Call Us What We Carry, superstar inaugural poet Amanda Gorman writes:
excerpt from “Fugue” by Amanda Gorman
The first line of the excerpt employs alliteration in the same manner as Poe. The D sound is repeated on the stressed syllable. Later in the excerpt, Gorman uses alliteration in a similar manner to an anglo-saxon poet, as she moves the “f” sound around to different places in her lines.
Later in the collection, Gorman highlights alliteration as an essential literary technique, one which defines the poet, and speaks to the power of poetry. In her poem “Memorial”, Gorman writes:
But why alliteration? Why the pulsing percussion, the string of syllables? It is the poet who pounds the past back into you.
Thus, arguably the biggest contemporary superstar in poetry (is that even arguable at this point?) uses alliteration in her poetry.
Gorman, Poe, Pope, and the Beowulf poet refuse to avoid alliteration; the rest of us should follow their example.
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Alliteration works in non-poetic writing as well. One of my favorite examples of alliteration in prose writing comes from Charles Dickens’ description of the storming of the Bastille in A Tale of Two Cities:
Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the fire and through the smoke — in the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against a cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonier — Defarge of the wine-shop worked like a manful soldier, Two fierce hours.
Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge down! “Work, comrades all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name of all the Angels or the Devils — which you prefer — work!”Thus Defarge of the wine-shop, still at his gun, which had long grown hot.
In the first line of each of the two excerpted paragraphs, Dickens uses similar phrases which feature alliteration. In each example, Dickens’ uses the repeated hard “d” sound to represent the thud of the cannons against the walls of The Bastille. Like Poe’s, Dickens’ alliteration is also onomatopoeia, and, therefore, as Pope advises, even in prose, the sound echoes the sense. Moreover, the missing “d” in the second paragraph highlights the fact that one of the two drawbridges has been taken out by the rebels’ cannons. The missing “d” sound highlights the missing drawbridge.
Another more modern example is found in the film V for Vendetta, written by the Wachowskis and directed by James McTeigue. In one of the most popular scenes from the film, V, played by Hugo Weaving, gives a speech in which nearly every word begins with the letter “v,” in tribute to the Alan Moore’s comic which inspired the movie, in which each chapter title is a “v” word (in fact, many of the “v” words used in the speech are taken directly from those chapter titles).
V for Vendetta “V” speech
When I watched the movie in the theater, this speech drew appreciative applause from the audience, who seemed thrilled by the alliteration as the speech built to a crescendo–take that, Frank L. Visco!
Of course V for Vendetta followed a long tradition of comic book alliteration. The great Stan Lee loved alliteration, especially when naming characters: Peter Parker, Sue Storm, Read Richards, Matt Murdock, The Fantastic Four, the list goes on.
I could go on as well, but I think I’ve made my point.
Analysis
So, why is alliteration looked down upon? It seems that it’s because people misinterpreted a joke. Visco, who ironically uses alliteration to criticize its use, was clearly writing tongue-in-cheek. One could even say that the fact he opens with the alliteration “rule” shows he recognizes its power. Meme culture has contributed to the proliferation of Visco’s rules, and, as with so many other things, its has stripped the the original article of its context.
While it is true that alliteration can take a reader out of the story or be distracting if its used poorly, the same could be said for any literary technique. A bad simile or metaphor will take the reader out of the writing just as quickly; poor rhythm in poetry will do the same. Any device can be overused, and the writer must strive use them all judiciously. That is true about alliteration, but it is not unique to alliteration.
The fact is that proper alliteration makes writing memorable, which is why it often used in marketing. It is a signature device of writers ranging from Edgar Allan Poe, to Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, to Amanda Gorman.
Avoid it at your peril.
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A. A. Rubin 