including ‘sound’ in writing
I am so proud of my new poetry book ‘mnemonic – soundscape and birdsong’ (Chapel Street Editions, 2024) because it focuses on including sound in writing. Of the five senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste), most creative writing focuses on vision. It is a bit of a challenge to include the other senses in order to give a more complete idea of the sensations contributed by your surroundings.
~
~
My book includes bird song as a main part of the soundscape. It also includes other sounds: the singing of a rock skipped across a frozen pond, the call of the spring peepers, the clinking of ice in glasses, the sound of a kettle boiling over a woodland fire.
~
~
For ways of including sounds in writing, you can look at some of my earlier posts here, and here.
~
I think my favourite poem in the ‘mnemonic’ collection is about my Dad who took us along the Yarmouth shore to find iron pyrite (fool’s gold). The sounds in this poem focus on the shorebirds. Here is a short excerpt:
4.
he takes us prospecting
we wedge into crevasses
keen for pyrite gold
cube within cube
embedded in stone
we always forget the hammer
we chip and scratch with fingernails
reach across rock
dare the waves
5.
a sanderling cries
quit quit!
6.
shorebirds
befriend me
a dowitcher sews a seam with her bill
bastes salt water to shore
the sanderling shoos back the tide
terns
plunge into the ocean
and complain they are wet
~
~
I hope you will have fun incorporating sound into your writing.
~
All my best,
Jane
nichepoetryandprose 
Dear Jane, Your beautiful new book arrived from Amazon. It is here by my computer as I write this comment. Wonderful. Thank you and blessings, Ellen
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ellen Grace Olinger
March 20, 2024 at 2:38 pm
Thank you for buying my books! I think about you way out west (mid-west) and I enjoy your posts. Hope you like my poems. the one about the scribble bird is a favourite because it reminds me of our grey woods,
LikeLiked by 1 person
jane tims
March 21, 2024 at 11:04 pm