Sound in writing? Impossible.

Holy Crap this woman knows what she is talking about. I really enjoyed Oliver and her ability to describe this complex topic. She really emphasized to me that there is a lot going on in even a poem with just a few words. She really understands every key component of her craft. Before, I thought words were just words, no real “sound” or importance in the letters of the words. I have never really thought of “sound” in a piece of writing or poem. I just read it. It sounds good and it seems like a poem. I never really thought about the components of the “sound” of it. Oliver describes the soft and hard sounds, things that I have heard about, but never really considered while writing a poem. I usually just wrote a poem, hoping it sounded pretty good. But now I can truly see the importance of the sound of a poem. I really liked her example of Robert Frost’s poem. Oliver used this example really well. It helped me better understand the whole “sound” thing. I looked for the sound and flow in the poem and was really able to understand it. However, she said that not all poets utilize the power of sound in a poem. This made it seem as though only a master at poetry can really use sound in a poem. This seemed kind of disconcerting and almost made it seem as though I would never be able to really utilize the power of sound in a poem and the different hard and soft sounds that different letters and letter combinations make. However, I think that with some effort, I could utilize some aspects of sound in a poem to improve the quality of the poem and make it more eloquent.