Poetry Series
I’m currently doing a five-part poetry series on Wednesdays. It’s actually late Wednesday as I create this on January 14th. The last few days have gotten a little away from me, as I’ve mentioned in earlier episodes. I’m in a season of caregiving for my parents, and while it is sweet, it’s also challenging and often very time-consuming. Because of that, my podcast timing can sometimes slip.
My hope is to settle into a more regular rhythm of podcasting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but these first few months of 2026 may be a bit of a learning curve as I work through those timing issues.
As I mentioned, this is part of a poetry series on Wednesdays. Last week’s episode focused on why I love poetry and how I see it as the beginning of a conversation — or part of a long conversation — that we have with art and words. Poetry, to me, is a way to explore emotion and hold mighty themes in a very short format.
Before Modern Poetry
Before modern poetry, though, we also had longer forms of poetry. One example is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is one of the earliest known works in the English language. It’s a book-length poem — narrative poetry — meaning it tells a story using poetic form.
So what does that have to do with today’s topic: sound and silence?
Sound and Silence
Have you ever noticed how certain sounds stand out?
The tick-tick-tick of some clocks versus the tick-tock of others. Or the sound car tires make on wet pavement, which is quite different from the sound they make on dry pavement. On wet pavement there’s a shushing sound, while on dry pavement there’s more of a hum.
Sound can anchor us in the present moment. It can also bring us back to a moment in time, filled with memory. Sound can create rhythm, like a song or a dance.
Sound is also a reminder that poetry is heard as much as it is read. Reading a poem out loud can bring out new nuances and meaning. Going to an open mic night can highlight aspects of a poet’s work that we might not notice when reading silently on the page.
What fascinates me is that poetry can be enjoyed both with full sound and in silence. Even when we read a poem quietly, there can still be a sense of rhythm or sound present in the words. And when we hear a poem performed — with voice, movement, and expression — we may notice entirely different things than we do on the page.
The Relationship Between Sound and Silence
That relationship between sound and silence is important to me personally. I grew up with grandparents and parents who struggled with hearing. I also have Ménière’s disease, which affects hearing and creates fluctuating hearing loss. Sound can sometimes come and go for me, almost as if someone is cupping their hand over my ear and then taking it away again.
Because of that, I think I’ve often been drawn to visual poetry — poetry that I can see as well as hear.
At the same time, I love sound. I love music. I love rhythm. I love drumming and tap dancing. I love the sound of rain, the call of robins, the tapping of a woodpecker finding food on a fall day, and the sound of a small plane flying overhead on a summer afternoon.
I also follow people online who are deaf or hard of hearing, who create meaning through sign language. Watching language become movement — seeing meaning shaped through hands and space instead of sound — feels like a kind of poetry in itself. It reminds me that poetry doesn’t live only in spoken words. It can live in the body, in motion, and in visual form as much as in sound.
There are many ways to use poetic devices for effect in writing. For me, consonance, rhythm, and other sound-related elements like assonance can be powerful tools. When we see or hear the same consonant repeated, it can emphasize a feeling, a mood, or a theme.
Sometimes when I write, I don’t immediately hear the sound of a line. Sometimes a line just looks right on the page, and I’m not sure why. Other times I say it out loud and realize that what I’m seeing is actually a visual representation of sound repeating in a way that pleases my ear and highlights the nuance I’m trying to express.
Sound is meaningful and helpful in poetry writing, but I don’t ever want to rely on it as the only way to make a poem meaningful. Not everyone hears in the same way.
Sound Can Be Visual
Rhythm and sound can be visual in a poem, too — seen in the length of lines, in how words stretch across the page, and in how similar consonants appear together.
I first really fell in love with consonance when I read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight while preparing to teach a British literature course. I had encountered consonance before, but this was when it truly stood out to me.
Sir Gawain and The Green Knight Reference
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the poet uses what’s called the bob-and-wheel form. Whether you read it in the original Middle English or in a modern translation, the structure is clear. There are long lines with no rhyme scheme but with repeated consonant sounds, followed by a short concluding unit — a two-word “bob” and then four rhyming lines called the “wheel.”
The visual difference on the page between the long alliterative lines and the short rhyming lines is striking. That structure also helps create rhythm and memory, especially for poems that were originally shared aloud.
I’ve never written a poem using the bob-and-wheel form myself, but I admire it deeply. It’s influenced how I think about sound, repetition, and visual rhythm in my own poetry.
Sound is Visual and Auditory
For me, sound in a poem is both visual and auditory. It shows up in how words flow across the page as much as in how they sound when spoken aloud.
Sometimes rhythm in poetry isn’t about counting syllables. It’s about where lines begin and end, how they fall into one another, and how that movement creates tension, cohesion, or openness. Even then, as I said in the first episode of this series, I believe every poem invites us to say more — even after the last line ends.
An Example from My Poetry
Before I close, I want to share the final three lines from a poem in my new collection To Speak, called “Driftwood Curves.”
Driftwood curves echo
Bridges spanning sea, and I climb
Away from salty breeze and back to reality.
Even when I see those lines on the page, I can hear the sounds — the repetition, the echo, the stretching of words and lines. Each line grows slightly longer, creating a visual effect as well as a sonic one. That combination is something I love in poetry.
Some of my poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and one poem from To Speak tied for second place in a poetry contest a few years ago. I hope that if you pick up the collection, you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing and shaping it.
Thank you for joining me today as I reflect on poetry, sound, and silence.
