Poetry Tones

This is another essay written for an online poetry course I am taking.  Not my best writing, but I'm hoping it helps explain some about the use of tone in poetry through irony, images, and various other literary tools.

                                                                   Poetry Tones

Poetry is best written by revealing ordinary events in a new and extraordinary way.  If something is written in a familiar way, it might as well be prose or correspondence.  When the view shifts and tone is set, it can change the simple words into poetic text, invoking emotional responses within the reader and making the poetry memorable. Tone can change a poems meaning or feeling.  Tone can be created with the use of a variety of devices, such as length of words and sentences, placement of punctuation, repetition, and images.  

Irony is often used in poetry and can help set the tone.  Irony is saying one thing but meaning another, often just the opposite of what is said.  This can cause a surprise to the reader.  The reader may be expecting one thing, but then they get the opposite, giving the poem a twist that makes it memorable.  For instance, the line used in the class example is “Oh, I simply hate those shoes!  Can I borrow them sometime?”  After saying you hate shoes, the reader might expect a disparaging remark or a statement continuing the dislike of the shoes.  But by adding the line “Can I borrow them sometime?” the reader is given the not subtle hint that the writer doesn’t actually hate the shoes, and in fact likes them very much, to the point of wanting to borrow them. The author of the Rime of  the Ancient Mariner changes an ordinary statement and with a twist of words and use of irony, makes for a memorable line, “Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” The writer could simply have stated, “on the ocean, there is a vast quantity water, but the saline content makes it not at all potable.”  Though each statement may be true, the second one sounds like a science journal entry, while the first one sounds poetic and lyrical.

Repetition of words or phrases can set the tone in a poem.  In the famous poem, “Twas the Night Before Christmas” the poet Clement Clark Moore used repetition in the line “Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!” and created a tone of expectance and hurriedness, leaving the reader nearly breathless. 

Imagery is often used to set the tone of a poem.  Edgar Lee Masters did an excellent job of using imagery to set and change the tones in a variety of ways in the collection of poems Spoon River Anthology.  He took a serious and sad image, that of the graveyard, and brought each person lying within back to life by speaking from their point of view.  Sometimes it was sad, such as the woman whose husband abused her.  Other times it was funny, like the judge who lamented his unmarked and forgotten grave while he railed at the fact the town drunkard got a marble marker.  The reader may expect to read all sadness and somberness in poetry centered around a graveyard, but Master’s mastered the art of tone, leaving the reader guessing at what the next poem would bring. 

The tone a poet uses in a poem can make a reader want to cry with the protagonist or laugh or anything in between.  The poet can use irony, images, pace, and numerous other literary devices to set the tone of a poem.   By giving the reader something unexpected and twisting the normal, causing the reader to reconsider the ordinary in a new and extraordinary way, the poet creates interesting and memorable poems.