How To Use Diction Effectively In Your Poem

How can I use diction effectively in my poem?

Language has what we call, loosely, consonants and vowels. And the consonants are the stopping points, where we're using our lips and our tongue against our teeth or something at the back of the throat. And then we have these open sounds, which we call vowels. If you repeat the closing ones, we tend to call that alliteration. I once had an advert through the door when I was a little kid that said, "Britain's Biggest Bunker Bargain." Well obviously I'm repeating the 'buh.' That's alliteration. With assonance, you're repeating the open sound. The cat sat on the mat. The 'a' sound is what I'm repeating, as well as the rhyme, of course. So that's assonance, when you repeat the open sound. You can play with these and use these. Quite what the effect is, no one ever really quite knows. If you write a poem, and you have a lot of m's in it, people will tell that you that that's very musical and murmury. If you write poem or a line with a lot of s in it, people will say that you're hissing and you're snakelike and quite angry. But it doesn't have to be. So I would say always use those things with care, and think out why you're using them.