Sound and Rhythm of Poetry

Sound and Rhythm of Poetry
Sound poetry is a form of literary or musical composition in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded at the expense of more conventional semantic and syntactic values; "verse without words". By definition, sound poetry is intended primarily for performance. Most people tend to have shape or form on their minds when they think of poetry. They expect to see relatively short lines of text, set well in from the left edge of the page, aligned on the left, though often with a regular pattern of indentations, and arranged in groups, like the stanzas of song lyrics. (They probably also expect to find rhyme and one of the four traditional rhythms, but I'd rather not worry about those things right now.).
It's true that most poems have been so formed. There seems to be something important about the visual impression of sentences broken up into lines, and the line breaks seem to affect the reader's eye in mysterious ways.
But form alone doesn't make poetry of words and sentences--though it can make verse. Arranging a work of philosophy or psychology or mathematics in the shape of a poem might make it verse, but won't make it poetry. Contrary to the popular perception, verse is neither necessary, nor sufficient for poetry. Other things are needed.
One of those other things is sound. Even a great poem on a page isn't poetry. You have to get it off the page and into the air to make it poetry. You have to say it to make it poetry.
But it has to be spoken RIGHT--or else it comes alive as a monster and destroys the village and eats the babies!
Here's an example of a poem that can become a monster. This used to be quite a popular poem. It was included in lots of schoolbooks until the middle of the twentieth century. Millions of children learned it by heart. But for most of us who live in America today, it's a very dead poem. Let's see it we can breathe some life back into it.
Rhythm is a musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables. Rhythm occurs in all forms of language, both written and spoken, but is particularly important in poetry
The most obvious king of rhythm is the regular repetition of stressed and unstessed syllables found in some poetry.
Writers also create rhythm by repeating words and phrases or even by repeating whole lines and sentences.The most common units ("feet") of rhythm in English are:
The iamb, consisting of two syllables, only the second accented (as in "good-bye")
The trochee, two syllables, only the first accented (as in "awful")
The anapest, three syllables, with only the third stressed (as in "Halloween")
The dactyl, one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed (as in "wonderful")
The spondee, two consecutive syllables that are both stressed (as in "big deal")
Rhythm (or "measure") in writing is like the beat in music. In poetry, rhythm implies that certain words are produced more force- fully than others, and may be held for longer duration. The repetition of a pattern of such emphasis is what produces a "rhythmic effect." The word rhythm comes from the Greek, meaning "measured motion."
Comment:
• Intonasi terdiri atas jeda, tekanan (dinamik), dan tempo (cepat-lambatnya pengucapan). Jeda atau perhentian pengucapan sangat menentukan makna yang tersurat. Peletakan jeda yang berbeda memungkinkan terjadinya perbedaan makna.
Tekanan menunjukakan bagian yang dipentingkan. Sementara cepat-lambat menunjukkan perasaan yang ingin disampaikan/ diungkapkan. Bagian yang dipentingkan atau yang memperoleh tekanan biasanya diucapkan lebih lambat. Sedangkan bagian yang tidak memperoleh tekanan biasanya diucapkan lebih cepat.
• Lafal: Ketepatan pengucapan
• Volume kerasnya suara
• Irama pergantian naik-turun dan panjang-pendek serta keras-lemah suara yang beraturan

Dalam seni sastra, irama membuat rangkaian kata-kata seolah hidup dan bernyawa.