Do Images Rhyme

It’s time to dance along with the Glokal Yokel Radio Poetry group!

Greg and Sarah have inspired us to dance with them around the question:

Do Images Rhyme?

So…. that is the week’s challenge and let me try….with answers from the show’s questions:

*How do you rhyme an image?

A poet creates images with words– just the precise words in the best place and the right rhythm to flow into the imagination and emotion of the reader or listener.

A rhyme is a harmony of sorts, and there are many different kinds, not simply the end unit rhyme, such as rhyme and time.

Rhymes bring something to the rhythm of a poem — a stopping point, a starting point, a flow forward.

An image that is carefully crafted as is a poem, contains those same qualities. There is a frame created for our eyes, like the shape of a poem. Just as the words of a poem are carefully chosen to flow, to describe, to inspire emotion, so are each aspect of an image chosen so that each item on which the eye can first be drawn leads us through the image to the focal point. Each element is in some sort of concert with the others— whether to contrast or complement, just like a rhyme can provide a hard stop or a soft continuance.

Examples:

hard stop—

from poetry
from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s The Eagle:

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

The rhymes begin a pause, a stop.

from images

black on white, black on red, flowers on guns, a child’s tear on a pillow, a dark shadow beside a bright reflection

soft continuance—

from poetry
from Robert Frost’s Dust of Snow

— read aloud and listen to how the words keep flowing, not stopping us to pause:

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

from images—

the tints and shades of each element play off one another — the subtle color changes in flowers or clothing or painted walls, the soft light highlights that fade into shadows

And then, a series of verses with rhyme helps us remember as we read, just as a series of images with subtle or stark changes also help us focus and remember the message.

I think these are some ways that images rhyme.


* What are your other artistic endeavors? What connection to poetry do you see?

I often draw my own art for my blogs, as seen here.

I’m not an artist of talent, but I am a beginning artist, learning through various classes and using different apps on my iPad.

I use models to help me learn for both, poetry and art— mentor texts, if you will. I wrote about such journeys, recently— just remember, I am still learning. 🙂

Poetry

War Dance Soup and Morning Smiles [scroll down to last section]

Chalk Joy — Haiku to Tanka

Art

Monochrome — setting up layers and colors

Portraits in color and shadows, set of three:

Portrait 1
Portrait 2 Revised
Portrait, Lively

Illustration art brings the nuances of color and shape into play, just as poetry brings the nuances of words and rhythm together. Just the right color or line is like just the right word and rhythm in poetry. It’s a dance I’m still learning, in both my art and my poetry.

— and may I add, that I blog about both, sharing my little world, adding a positive bit that may help others too. Writing, poetry, and art help us makes sense of both the world and ourselves. I encourage blogging for all of us, especially to promote all the positives we humans are capable of to make the world better.


* Do you, and if so how, do you use images in writing poetry?

Images inspire my poetry
They speak to me discretely
in a petal, fallen, wind-blown
in children’s bikes dropped on the lawn
calling for words that delight me.

Images and poetry go together.

You may see my images and poetry on my See-Frame-Focus Blog— as participation in NaPoWriMo [National Poetry Writing Month] and NPM [National Poetry Month] each April since 2013.

Notice the blog is named for photography — images, and poetry would also fit:
See it.
Frame it.
Focus it in image or poetry or both.


* Why did you choose the poets you are sharing?

The first poem creates a perfect image of our national bird in the United States, the bald eagle — just a few words describe its power and importance– each line an image created with the power of well chosen words that flow in a rhythm that enhances our ability to “see” the images, because the flow is pleasant in our minds, allowing us to be open to its meaning.

The Eagle
Alfred Lord Tennyson – 1809-1892
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

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.

Each line of each verse rhyme through the repetition of the end unit of the word: “ands” in the first and “alls” in the second. The rhyme works with the rhythm of each line, and in this case brings each detailed image to a close before the next image begins. So this shows another meaning of rhyme— to be in accord. In this poem, the end sets the beginning in each line, preparing us for the next connection. The rhythm and rhyme bring a harmony to the poem.

If you’ve ever seen an eagle perched high on a cliff or tree above water, surrounded by brilliance of a blue summer sky, then that sudden drop to dive in for its prey is exactly this poem: Six lines — a moment in time — whose words roll together in alliteration, the syllables timed to rhyme, and from the top of the crag to the deep ocean, the eagle rules. It’s a perfect poem.

The second poem:

Dust of Snow
By Robert Frost

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

“A dust of snow… A change of mood.” Read it again –set in a flow of just a few words whose rhythm and rhyme bring that moment in time alive. Instead of stopping the line, the rhyming seems to move us forward in the rhythm from one line to the next— a bouncing rhythm balanced by the rhyme. It helps draw us through the scene with the poet.

I’ve been there in the woods, walking to work off some annoyance, when the plop of snow on my shoulder snaps me into the moment, the now of nature and beauty of the world. It could be a bird flying in front of you, or a sudden slip of your foot in your path. They are moments in time that shake us into our now, they are perfect scenes for poetry, and poems like these remind us of that— poetry is captured moments.


So, what do you think?  Do images rhyme– or could they?

Note: I’ll be updating this post with the Poetry Radio link so you can hear everyone’s input into the question– I know that Kevin and Greg have some great ideas about connections among art, image, and rhyme/poetry. I can hardly wait to hear them!