Onomatopoeia

 Literary Technique: Onomatopoeia

Poem Example:

Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio
By Carl Sandburg   

It's a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes.
The trombone pony neighs and the tuba snorts.
The banjo tickles and titters too awful.
The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers.
     The cartoonists weep in their beer.
     Ship riveters talk with their feet
     To the feet of floozies under the tables.
A quartet of white hopes mourn with interspersed snickers:
        "I got the blues.
        I got the blues.
        I got the blues."
And . . . as we said earlier:
     The cartoonists weep in their beer.

Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio

  by Carl Sandburg

It's a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes.
The trombone pony neighs and the tuba jackass snorts.
The banjo tickles and titters too awful.
The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers.
     The cartoonists weep in their beer.
     Ship riveters talk with their feet
     To the feet of floozies under the tables.
A quartet of white hopes mourn with interspersed snickers:
        "I got the blues.
        I got the blues.
        I got the blues."
And . . . as we said earlier:
     The cartoonists weep in their beer.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15265#sthash.JrJPK9i0.dpuf

Biographical Information: In the twenties, he started some of his most ambitious projects, including his study of Abraham Lincoln. From childhood, Sandburg loved and admired the legacy of President Lincoln. For thirty years he sought out and collected material, and gradually began the writing of the six-volume definitive biography of the former president. The twenties also saw Sandburg's collections of American folklore, the ballads in The American Songbag and The New American Songbag (1950), and books for children. These later volumes contained pieces collected from brief tours across America which Sandburg took each year, playing his banjo or guitar, singing folk-songs, and reciting poems.

In the 1930s, Sandburg continued his celebration of America with Mary Lincoln, Wife and Widow (1932), The People, Yes (1936), and the second part of his Lincoln biography, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He received a second Pulitzer Prize for his Complete Poems in 1950. His final volumes of verse were Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960) and Honey and Salt (1963). Carl Sandburg died in 1967.

Explanation of Technique: Onomatopoeia is defined as a word, which imitates the natural sounds of a thing. It creates a sound effect that mimics the thing described, making the description more expressive and interesting.This poem uses several onomatopoeia, such as the one in the title, to entice the reader's senses and aid the reader in imagining the setting of the poem. Words such as 'neigh', 'snort', and 'titters' are examples of onomatopoeia because they are words that imitate the sounds of objects.

Interpretation of Poem: The poem starts off by describing the different sounds of jazz in Ohio, and then moves on to talk about the situation with other occupations. Cartoonists and reporters and ship riveters are feeling down and depressed, while jazz musicians thrive. The theme of this poem is that while others around them collapse, musicains will continue to play and create music.

Visual Representation:

Explanation of Visual: I selected this image because it has a very lively and fun feel to it. It depicts three jazz musicians passionately playing their instruments. It contains many different colors and textures in it, like how music has different tempos and dynamics. It matches the poem because it represents the first three lines of the poem.

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