BMW Comments Upgraded

I muse in the morning

Tanks to gas I am drinking
All kinds of thoughts come to mind
So for you I shall be kind
While my gears are roving wild
See not this picture my child

Big mouth women cha-cha-cha
Open me doors from afar
Best of me taken from range
Parked self 'neath woman's tongue tree
They rattle querulously

Lawyers and doctors alike
Never again take a bike
A mini-bus is too small
BMW rides all
Black and white and rainbows too
So many things I can do

Don't deem what I say is true
Check the highway flowing through
Count and figure out the flow
Passing by you to and fro
Brand new BMW
Riding who! Boo, Sue and Lou

Poets often write about social issues; so there is no surprise that the poem casts a critical eye on materialism with respect to the motor-car culture. Motor-cars are electronic horses serving industry and leisure pursuits. They are luxury items too for the rich, the famous and the materialistic cravings of folks in all the different strata of the society. The electronic gadgetry in stellar cars is always a source of vibrant discussion, observation and longing for, no doubt about that.  BMW articulates the poet’s intentions and observations in this social commentary poem using the rhetorical device known as prosopopoeia. This device gives non-human beings the ability to speak like they are human beings.

Another poetic device used in this poem is the Elision: the omission of a letter or syllable as a means of contraction, generally to achieve a uniform metrical pattern, but sometimes to smooth the pronunciation; most such omissions are marked with an apostrophe.  Examples from poem shown below:

Parked self ‘neath woman’s tongue tree,

(Parked self beneath woman’s tongue tree)

Don’t deem what I say is true!

(Do not deem what I say is true!)

 We measure syllables in classical poetry to determine the length of verses; by separating syllable stresses in terms of  those syllables that are stressed and those syllables that are unstressed by using Qualitative meter  which is the tool assigned to the metrical forms of English Language poetry. Keep in focus that every syllable must have a vowel in it. Examples from poem are shown below where stressed syllable embolden with the ictus (⁄) hovering above them; and the breve (ˬ) hovering over unstressed syllables:

The metrical forms of Greek and Latin poetry use quantitative meter for determining the length and shortness of syllables in their poetry. Quantitative meter has never worked well in Germanic languages like English, but it was common in Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Arabic poetry. Vowels in syllables can be long or short by “nature” or by “position”. Nature and position determine the vowel quality. In scanning poems in Quantitative meter the long vowels are marked with a macron (-) and the short vowels are marked with a breve (ˬ). Our focus here is on Qualitative meter because the reference point is on English Language poetry. The examples shown are taken from the poem “BMW”.

Notice that the rhyme scheme in this poem is aabbcc ddeeff gghhii jjkkll tells you that each stanza has rhyming couplets. A further analysis of the poem shows that these couplets are made up of the open couplet and the closed couplet. In metered poetry a couplet is created when two successive verses rhyme.

The opened couplet is made when the thought is carried beyond the rhyming verse to end at any verse of a subsequent couplet. The enjambment provides an obvious clue showing where the open couplet is at. Here is an example taken from Edmund Spenser’s “Prosopopoeia: or Mother Hubbard’s Tale”

Even as new occasion appears?

Or shall we tie ourselves for certain years

To any service, Or to any place?

For it behooves ere that into the race

We enter, to resolve first hereupon.

Now surely brother (said the Fox anon)

Here are some examples of open couplets taken from the poem, “BMW”

All kinds of thoughts come to mind,

So for you I shall be kind,

While my gears are roving wild,

See not this picture my child.

Lawyers and doctors alike,

Never again take a bike.

Black and white and rainbows too;

So many things I can do.

Count and figure out the flow,

Passing by you to and fro;

Brand new BMW

Driving Tom, Dick, Sue and Lou.

Closed couplet emerges when the sense and syntax are self-contained within the two verses. No enjambment is used. Here are some examples taken from the poem, “BMW”:

I muse in the wee morning;

Tanks of gas I am drinking;

Big Mouth Women cha-cha-cha;

Open me doors from afar;

Best of me taken from range;

Strange behavior on high wage;

Parked me ‘neath woman’s tongue tree,

They rattled querulously;

A mini bus is too small;

BMW rides all;

Don't deem what I say is true!

Check the highway flowing through;

“BMW” is written in the form of a sexain trimeter that incorporates closed couplets and open couplets with a rhyme scheme aabbcc ddeeff gghhii jjkkll. In a sexain trimeter poem each stanzas has six verses with the same length of three metrical feet, and any rhyme scheme is applicable. A verse with three metrical feet is called a trimeter. A poem with all its verses measuring three feet and with all the stanzas having six verses is called a sexain trimeter poem.  The foot is the smallest level of organization of syllables whether by stress or length. The foot is the basic metrical unit that generates verse in classical English poetry and in Quantitative meter of classical ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The foot is classified by the number of syllables in the word as follows:

Monosyllable (Monosyllabic) is made up of one syllable words (example; big)

Disyllable (Disyllabic) is made up of two syllable words (example; picture)

Trisyllable (Trisyllabic) is made up of three syllable words (example; behavior)

Tetrasyllables (Tetrasyllabic) is made up of four syllable words (example; querulously)

The metrical unit is composed of syllables, the number of which is limited, with a few variations, by the sound pattern the foot represents. Scansion of verses in the first stanza of poem “BMW” provide examples of this as shown below:

There are six kinds of syllables:

Close Syllables

Open Syllables

Silent-E Syllables

Vowel Combination Syllables

Vowel-R Syllables

Consonant-L-E Syllables

A close syllables has one vowel and ends with a consonant. Examples taken from poetic works are underlined as follows:

Tanks to gas I am drinking;

All kinds of thoughts come to mind;

See not this picture my child.

An open syllable has one vowel, and that vowel occurs at the end of the syllable. Examples taken from poetic works are underlined as follows:

Big Mouth Women cha-cha-cha;

Open me doors from afar;

Best of me taken from range;

So many things I can do.

Don't deem what I say is true!

Check the highway flowing through;

Count and figure out the flow;

Passing by you to and fro;

Riding who: Boo, Sue and Lou?

The silent-e syllable ends in an “e”, has only one consonant before that “e” and only one vowel before that consonant. Examples taken from poetic works are underlined as follows:

Zesty conkies we share;                                    

Pumpkin alone will never do;                                                           

With potato, sugar and spice;                                          

Cook on square leaves with care.                    

Pass the plate with cheer,                                  

To friends but satellites of none;                     

Great cheese-on-bread is there.

The vowel combination syllable has a cluster of two or three vowels or a vowel consonant unit with a sound or sounds particular to that unit. Examples taken from poetic works are underlined as follows:

Conkies banana wear;                                                      

Housed in jacket uniquely ours;                      

Skilled fingers cut the leaves to strap,             

Laboriously they toiled each day,                   

In cane-fields near Foursquare;

Plenty facts stuck with glue

What are the images you see

Empire and George VI would die;

That Jesus Christ incarnation is true;

On the economic pie;

The gentle spring rain;

Give me a piece of luck

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise

At the end of the hall under the chair

The toy box---silent---near the old rocking chair

But then I really had no clue

Under the veil of favoritism

The vowel-r syllable is one which includes only one vowel followed by an “r”, or one vowel followed by an “r” which is followed by a silent “e”, or a vowel combination followed by an “r”. Examples taken from poetic works are underlined as follows:

Plainly stacked on tableware;

From stalk with sharp hardware;

What are the images you see

Pass the plate with cheer,

Great cheese-on-bread is there.

Amid great strife elsewhere;

From near and far

See, land, air and dog scenes;

Mix corn, coconut fair

Cook on square leaves with care

The consonant + le syllables known as (C+le syllables) are found at the end of words.  Examples taken from poetic works are underlined as follows:

An apple a day

And to baffle my foes I lash out

Humble folks now speak with a peerage tone.

The adorable wife stands in the crowd

Now they cuddle and they run

Of the Christian Church, is memorable

Insatiable desire to transform conditions for the masses

And life is sweet in this cyber bubble

Sustainable goals must be the refrain

The marble dolphin spat for them to see

The English Language phonics rules state that a syllable must have a vowel. The English vowels are “a, e, i, o and u”. In some situations “y and w” are vowels.  The diphthongs are “oi, oy, ou, ow, au, aw, oo” and many others. The diphthong has two vowels but in reality the vowels are treated as one vowel when counting for the number of syllables in words. The English Language consonants are; b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z, ch, sh, th, ph, wh, ng, and gh”.

Here are some examples of vowels, diphthongs and consonants taken from verses in the second stanza of poem “BMW” as shown in Tables 9 and 10. The vowels are underlined; the diphthongs italicized; the silent vowels in brackets and consonants are unmarked:

The vowel-r syllable is one which includes only one vowel followed by an “r”, or one vowel followed by an “r” which is followed by a silent “e”, or a vowel combination followed by an “r”. Examples taken from poetic works are underlined as follows:

Plainly stacked on tableware;

From stalk with sharp hardware;

What are the images you see

Pass the plate with cheer,

Great cheese-on-bread is there.

Amid great strife elsewhere;

From near and far

See, land, air and dog scenes;

Mix corn, coconut fair

Cook on square leaves with care

The consonant + le syllables known as (C+le syllables) are found at the end of words.  Examples taken from poetic works are underlined as follows:

An apple a day

And to baffle my foes I lash out

Humble folks now speak with a peerage tone.

The adorable wife stands in the crowd

Now they cuddle and they run

Of the Christian Church, is memorable

Insatiable desire to transform conditions for the masses

And life is sweet in this cyber bubble

Sustainable goals must be the refrain

The marble dolphin spat for them to see

The English Language phonics rules state that a syllable must have a vowel. The English vowels are “a, e, i, o and u”. In some situations “y and w” are vowels.  The diphthongs are “oi, oy, ou, ow, au, aw, oo” and many others. The diphthong has two vowels but in reality the vowels are treated as one vowel when counting for the number of syllables in words. The English Language consonants are; b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z, ch, sh, th, ph, wh, ng, and gh”.

Here are some examples of vowels, diphthongs and consonants taken from verses in the second stanza of poem “BMW” as shown in Tables 9 and 10. The vowels are underlined; the diphthongs italicized; the silent vowels in brackets and consonants are unmarked:

Table 9 Big Mouth Women cha-cha-cha; (This verse has 7 syllables and 8 vowels) Open me doors from afar; (This verse has 7 syllables and 8 vowels) Best of me taken from rang(e); (This verse has 7 syllables and 8 vowels) Strange behavior on high wag(e); (This verse has 7 syllables and 10 vowels) Park(e)d self ‘neath woman’s tong(ue) tree, (This verse has 7 syllables and 12 vowels) They rattled querulously; (This verse has 7 syllables and 8 vowels.

Table 10 Big Mouth Women cha-cha-cha; (This verse has 7 syllables and 7 vowels) Open me doors from afar; (This verse has 7 syllables and 7 vowels) Best of me taken from rang(e); (This verse has 7 syllables and 7 vowels) Strange behavior on high wag(e); (This verse has 7 syllables and 7 vowels) Park(e)d self ‘neath woman’s tong(ue) tree, (This verse has 7 syllables and 7 vowels) They rattled querulously; (This verse has 7 syllables and 7 vowels.

The English Language Phonics Rules stipulate that the number of vowels in a word determine the number of syllables in that same word; this rule is not evident in Table; 1 Table 2 applies the rule.  Now compare both tables and see where the discrepancies appear in Table 1.

The scansion of verses in poetry among other things requires the ability to divide words into syllables. Use the Phonics Rule Guides to determine the number of syllables in words as follows:

To find the number of syllables count the vowels in the word

Subtract any silent vowels, (like the silent “e” at the end of a word or the second vowel when too vowels are together in a syllable)

Subtract one vowel from every diphthong, (diphthongs only count as one vowel sound.)

The number of vowels sounds left is the same as the number of syllables.

The number of syllables heard when a word is pronounced is the same as the number of vowels sounds heard; for example, the word wage has two vowels, but the “e” is silent, leaving one vowel sound and one syllable. The word billionaire has six vowels,   but the vowel e is silent, the two diphthongs are io and ai, so this word has only three vowel sounds and therefore, three syllables.

The scansion of verses requires the ability to divide words into syllables. Here are four rules to apply when splitting up words into syllables:

 Divide between two middle consonant as shown in Table 11. The only exception to this rule is that consonant digraphs are never split up; consonant digraphs represent only one sound.  See examples in Table 12.

Table 11

Examples from Poetic Works	Middle Consonants	Syllable Divisions
With Barrow, one of our national heroes With a barrel of a gun at his side From all manner of wickedness depart When in the garden their parents were bitten Now they cuddle and they run	Barrow barrel manner bitten cuddle	Bar row bar rel man ner bit ten cud dle

Table 12

Examples from Poetic Works	Consonant Digraphs	Syllables
While my gears are roving wild; See not this picture my child Big Mouth women cha-cha-cha Open me doors from afar Strange behavior on high wage Parked self ‘neath woman’s tongue tree They rattle querulously Black and white and rainbows too So many things I can do Count and figure out the flow Brand new BMW Riding who! Boo, Sue and Lou Conkies wrapped in banana leaves Pass the plate with cheer Great cheese-on-bread is there	While child cha from Strange tree They Black, white things the, flow Brand who wrapped the, plate, cheer Great, cheese, bread, there	While child cha cha cha from Strange tree They Black, white things the, flow Brand who wrapped the, plate, cheer Great, cheese, bread, there

When monosyllables appear, the usual thing to do is to divide in front of it, as shown in Table 13.  The only exception to this rule is when the first syllable has an obvious short sound as shown in Table 14.

Table 13

Examples from Poetic Works	Monosyllables	Monosyllable Divisions
Open me doors from afar Amid great strife elsewhere Among wet leaves and rising of the sun Send me an email too Cling not to abuse, she should flee Far away from him she should flee	open Amid Among email Abuse away	o pen A mid A mong e mail a buse a way

Table 14

Examples from Poetic Works	Short Vowel Sounds in First Syllables	Syllable Divisions
And cabin becomes someone’s idea of a good place discretion you pay for it wasn’t mine either but sits on me imprints on me (“Cabin” by Anne Waldman)	cabin	cab in
Of fear and homage to the famine god Toughen the muscles behind their  humbled knees, Make a seasonal altar of the sod. (Seamus Heaney, poet)	famine	fam ine
People out gamin on Spring Garden highway These masked grasshoppers	gamin	gam in
This time tomorrow, where shall I be? Not in this academy! No more Latin, no more French, No more sitting on a hard school bench.	Latin	Lat in
A hundred bolts of satin perhaps you specialized more than you imagined (Kay Ryan, poet)	satin	sat in

                                                

Divide before the consonant before an “-le” syllable as shown in Table 15. The only exception to this rule is in words with “ckle” as shown in Table 16.

Table 15

Examples from Poetic Works	The “-le” syllable	Syllable Divisions
An apple a day And to baffle my foes I lash out The adorable wife stands in the crowd Now they cuddle and the run Of the Christian Church is memorable Insatiable desire to transform conditions for the masses And life is sweet in this cyber bubble Sustainable goals must be the refrain The marble dolphin spat for them to see They rattle querulously	apple baffle adorable cuddle memorable insatiable bubble sustainable marble rattle	ap ple baf fle a dor a ble cud dle mem o ra ble in sa tia ble bub ble sus tain a ble mar ble rat tle

Table 16

Examples from Poetic Works	The “ckle” words	Syllable Divisions
Tickle me pink is lot of fun Through the pickle hedge Fame is a fickle fool Sickle beach bay like a wine glass The trickle-down theory of happiness found Pouring heavily from heaven to the ground	tickle pickle fickle sickle trickle	tick le pick le fick le sick le trick le

Divide off any compound words, prefixes, suffixes and roots which have vowel sounds as shown in Table 17.

Table 17

Examples from Poetic Works	Syllable Types	Prefixes, Suffixes and Roots with vowel sounds	Syllable Divisions
And he bemoans the bell that chimes The  Union Jack; it disappeared His spilled blood the redeeming sacrifice That Jesus Christ incarnation is true Follow precepts and examples He set His hallmark sinners must never neglect Cricketer from Police Sports Club Greatest all-rounder kneeled Slaves are no longer on the plantation And much sadness still lingers in the air Walking in revere so my head tells me With emoticons fully aglow His death, resurrection and ascension	Prefix Prefix Prefix ˗ Suffix Prefix ˗ Suffix Prefix Prefix ˗ Suffix Suffix Suffix Suffix Suffix Suffix Suffix Suffix Suffix Suffix Prefix Suffix Prefix Prefix	bemoans disappeared redeeming incarnation precepts examples sinners, never Cricketer Greatest, rounder longer, plantation sadness, lingers walking reverse fully aglow resurrection ascension	be moans dis ap peared re deem ing in car na tion pre cepts, ex am ples sin ners, nev er Crick et er Great est  round er long er,  plan ta tion sad ness,  lin gers walk ing re verse ful ly, a glow res ur rec tion as cen sion

So there are four ways to split up a word into syllables. However, these ways do not negate the phonic rule guides of counting the number of vowels in a word; then subtracting any silent vowels and subtracting one vowel in every diphthong. When the phonic rule guides are applied, the number of vowel sounds left is the same as the number of syllables.

Reference:

Syllable Rules (Phonics on the Web)

www.phonicsontheweb.com/syllables.php