Yee-Haw, Onomatopoeia!

As I looked back at the haiku I posted a few days ago, I realized that unintentionally I had infused onomatopoeia ("rat-a-tat-tat") into the final product.

A word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, suggesting its source object (such as "click," "clang," "buzz," or animal noises such as "oink", "quack", "flap", "slurp", or "meow"), I find the playful nature of some Onomatopoeia to be useful in "punching" up some generally stoic poetic forms.

During one class many years ago, I introduced a unique Onomatopoeia Poem form that I came across trolling the web for lesson plans. The criteria for drafting the Onomatopoeia Poems is as follows: a length of one stanza of no less than four lines and a minimum of three words per line, ABCB rhyme scheme (if you choose to go longer than four lines per stanza continue the rhyme scheme), lines 1 and 3 (and odd lines if more than four lines) should contain onomatopoeia. This is also one of those forms for which is it suggested you have a title, a practice which I have found is useful in establishing a focus for your reader.

Here is a "tasty" sample I wrote back in the day for my middle schoolers:

Lunchroom Music

Crunch! Munch! Crunch!
Potato chips sure taste swell!
Slurp, slurp, BURP!!!
Some don’t use their manners so well.

Here is another poem I quickly drafted this morning:

Writing Process in the Computer Age

Scratchety-scratch-scratch.
Words flow from the pencil in a torrential brainstorm.
Tappitty-tappitty-tap!
On the monitor, ideas take fuller form.

Maybe you've noticed that rather than using previously derived words (like "boom" or "jangle"), I tend to make up my own "sound-words." Yes, this may be cheating, but its intended to be fun, so what's wrong with a little wordplay? For me, it makes the whole endeavor seem more authentic, though it does assume the reader would see and say the "word" the same as I do.

While drafting an onomatopoeia poem your own, if you need help (and who doesn't occasionally?) finding some more appropriate traditional onomatopoeia words, give this site a try: Examples of Onomatopoeia.

Write on and Stay Poetic!