POETRY Diction and Tone

COMPONENT PARTS OF A WORD SOUND DENOTATION: dictionary meaning; can be a variety of definitions CONNOTATION: what it suggests beyond what it expresses—its overtones of meaning

ADJECTIVES FOR DESCRIBING CONNOTATION grandiose – humble fanciful – matter-of-fact romantic – realistic archaic – modern technical – everyday monosyllabic – polysyllabic

GOAL OF POETS . . . use as much of the word as possible . . . Their task is one of constant exploration and discovery. They search always for the secret affinities of words that allow them to be brought together with soft explosions of meaning.”

GOAL OF READER BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THESE ASPECTS OF WORDS: Shape color flavor

My Papa's Waltz The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

Accident I hear car brakes   I hear car brakes and see a woman going right through the windshield She lands on the hood of the car. A crowd gathers and watches. I watch them watching and feel horrible. Their fascination is worse than the accident itself.

a woman shoots across the windshield and lands across the hood. “Accident” draft I I hear car brakes and see a woman going right through the windshield She lands on the hood of the car.   A crowd gathers and watches. I watch them watching and feel horrible. Their fascination is worse than the accident itself. “Accident” draft II Sound of brakes, a woman shoots across the windshield and lands across the hood.    A crowd forms and stares, their gaping faces glazed and paralyzed in fascination.

“Accident” draft II Sound of brakes, a woman shoots across the windshield and lands across the hood.   A crowd forms and stares, their gaping faces glazed and paralyzed in fascination. “Accident” draft III Cry of brakes, a woman splits the windshield and dangles across the hood like a dog’s tongue. A crowd moves in to autograph their eyes. Their eyes stay in my eyes for miles.

TONE The writer’s or speakers’ attitude toward his subject, his audience, or herself. The emotional coloring, or the emotional meaning, of a poem. Determined by the inflection’s of the speaker’s voice.

DETERMINING TONE We have not really understood a poem unless we have accurately sensed the attitude Almost all of the elements of poetry help to indicate its tone: connotation, imagery, metaphor, irony, understatement, rhythm, sentence construction, and pattern Requires an increasing familiarity with the meanings and connotations of words, alertness to the presence of irony and other figures, and careful reading.

For a Lamb I saw on the slant hill a putrid lamb, Propped with daisies. The sleep looked deep. The face nudged in the green pillow But the guts were out for crows to eat. Where’s the lamb? whose tender plaint Said all for the mute breezes. Say he’s in the wind somewhere, Say, there’s a lamb in the daisies. --Richard Eberhart Apparently with no surprise To any happy flower, The frost beheads it at its play In accidental power. The blond assassin passes on, The sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another day For an approving God. --Emily Dickinson