Lost Alphabet ~ Reflection

One of the elements of Olstein’s prose poems that I most want to emulate in my own writing is her careful attention to sound devices. Usually, one of the first things I notice about a piece of writing is the way that the words sound together. Sometimes, when I read a poem through for the first time, I’m so distracted by beautiful combinations of sounds that I hardly notice what the words of the poem are saying, and I have to go back and re-read it at least once more to get the meaning. A lot of the time, though, I tend to notice sound in a more general way without being conscious of the specific combinations of sounds that make the words so beautiful. When I read, I want to work on being more aware of sound devices such as assonance, consonance, and alliteration, and rhythmic patterns. Even though many poems don’t have an organized rhyme scheme or metrical pattern, most good poetry incorporates devices of sound and rhythm in a way that enhances the meaning of the words. When I write, I want to try to think more consciously about incorporating some of these elements into my own poetry and prose.

One of Olstein’s sentences that I found particularly beautiful is on page 65 when she writes, “A chance freeze has belled the fence posts, glassed the grass into a still museum.” I enjoyed the alliteration in words such as “freeze” and “fence,” “glassed” and “grass,” and the assonance in “belled the fence” and “glassed the grass.” I also love the rhythm she creates with her alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables even though the sentence doesn’t conform to any regular metrical patterns. Another phrase I love is on page 84 when Olstein describes the sound of the moth’s wings as “papery whispers.” The slant rhyme in the sounds “paper” and “whisper” and the repetition of the “s” sound in the word whisper make the phrase sound just like the fluttering wings. I also love Olstein’s description in “Gossamer Wings” on page 85 when she says “This morning, returning with our weeping parcels, we stepped into a hut of wilted flowers, everywhere, wings loosening, falling like sails.” I love the way that she uses several words such as “weeping,” “wilted,” “loosening,” and “falling”  that are trochees and dactyls. Her repetition of the stressed-unstressed pattern makes the words themselves seem to droop and fall like the wilting wings of the moths.

In her piece titled “Instar” Olstein writes “Each specimen is scented. It’s difficult to believe I was so unaware” (56). In the same way in which Olstein became more aware of the minute differences in scent among the different specimens, I want to become more aware of the subtle nuances created by the sounds of words in what I read and in my own writing.