Lesson 1

Creating Music

If you like music-

rock, rap, rhythm & blues
country, gospel or classical tunes

then you will love poetry!

Poetry is full of music that captures your ear’s attention. Before we can read, write, or even speak, we are enraptured by the music of nursery rhymes and playground chants.

There are many different musical techniques in the poet’s game.
I stress three: Rhythm, Rhyme & Alliteration.

Recite the following lines out loud and listen for all three.

Slurp! Slop! Slip!
Words begin to drip!
Let me hear you give it some lip-
Poetry is hip.

Rhythm is created by the repetition of stresses and pauses. It's the bebop of language. Here the pauses come at the end of each line.

Rhyme is created by repeating matching sounds at the end of words: “slip,” “drip,” “lip,” and “hip”.

Alliteration occurs when we repeat the same consonant sound at the beginning of successive words. The S’s in the first line let you know you’re playing the game of poetry.

Poetry Prompt

Pick a favorite song, a tune that sticks in your head like "Old McDonald," or the "The Star Spangled Banner," or "I Found My Thrill On Blueberry Hill." Now write your own words to the melody.

Let me show you what I mean. I've always loved the old song "Home, Home on the Range". The original lyrics go something like this:

Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play.
Where seldom is heard,
A discouraging word
And the skys are not cloudy all day.

Now, here are some new lyrics
plugged in to the old tune.

Home, home of the strange
Where the weird and the wonderful play.
Where the upside-down
Is the right-side up
And the mixed-up show you the way.

Go ahead, you try it. Pick a song, something you know real well. Now write some strange new lyrics of your own.

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