Long and Short Vowels
This article is for: Beginner and Intermediate poets
Of all the sound-based techniques you might think about using in a poem, long and short vowels probably aren’t top of your list.
Rhyme, alliteration, assonance—these are likely to be the sound tools that you know about and have practiced.
But in this article, I want to introduce you to the value of considering how long or short your vowels are, and what that can do for a poem.
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If this sounds hard, it really isn’t! In fact, as you read you’ll discover that you’re already doing some of this without realizing it.
But you will definitely benefit from learning to consider your vowels: it’s a great way of adding subtle impact, and it can help your poems to feel more professional to editors and readers.
So grab your vowelometer (you don’t think you have one of those? Actually, you do!) and let’s go.
What are short and long vowels?
We could get technical here, but actually, this is very easy:
Short vowels are the vowel sounds you can say quickly, and long vowel sounds are the ones that take longer!
Not so hard, yes? Let’s see some examples:
Short Vowels
The “a” in “cat”
The “e” in “pet”
The “i” in “quick”
The “o” in “hot”
The “u” in “tub”
Long Vowels
The “a” in “after”
The “ee” in “peer”
The “i” in “twine”
The “o” in “tone”
The “ue” in “blue”
You should be able to hear that:
The short ones are over in one quick puff of air AND make the same sound all the way through
The long ones require a longer breath AND often change sound partway through (think about how your tongue has to move upward in your mouth when you make the “i” sound in “twine,” and how that changes the noise you’re putting out).
And that’s really all you need to know to recognize them and be able to use them!
Why pay attention to short and long vowels?
Simply put, short and long vowels create different kinds of reactions in readers’ minds.
Short vowels tend to be associated with things that are fast, active, dangerous, and so on.
Whereas long vowels tend to make readers think of things that are slow, soft, or peaceful, etc.
So, do you want to depict a bird zipping back and forth over a lake? Use short vowels—as I did in “zip.”
On the other hand, do you want to show a warm, lazy summer afternoon? Then use long vowels—as I did on “warm” and “lazy.”
And in essence, that’s all you need to know: think what kind of mood you’re going for, and choose vowel lengths that evoke it.
How this works in an actual poem
In Naomi Shihab Nye’s “The Traveling Onion,” (which is a fabulous poem by a fabulous poet), you can see both short and long vowels used to great effect.
At one point, Nye wants to describe the onion as beautiful. This is the line she uses:
pearly layers in smooth agreement
Check out those vowel sounds. All the ones that matter are long vowels:
“ea” in pearly
“a” in layers
“oo” in smooth
“ee” in agreement.
So, there’s no flashy alliteration or assonance in the line, but the vowels are all working together to create a calm, smooth soundscape for the line, to evoke an impression of beauty.
In the next lines, Nye wants to contrast the gentle beauty of the onion with what’s going to happen to it. So she brings in these words:
the knife enters
and
chopping block.
The “i” in knife, the first “e” in enters, and both “o”s in chopping and block are all short vowels, and they clearly show the sharpness and violence of the onion’s fate.
A reader reading this poem probably won’t be conscious of these long and short vowels, but they will respond to them subliminally, as a vital part of the feeling or mood of the poem.
How to do it yourself
If at this point you’re thinking, “How on earth do I pay attention to the lengths of my vowels as well as images, line breaks, adjectives, verbs, rhymes, and everything else I’m supposed to be doing in my poem!”—fear not!
It’s not actually that hard.
In the first place, you’re probably doing it already, to some extent.
You naturally choose words that “feel” right for the thing you want to describe—so you’ll already be picking short-vowel words and long vowels for topics that they fit.
And from that base, it’s pretty easy to enhance what you’re doing by making conscious choices.
Just try this exercise a few times:
When you want to change a word in a poem, make a list of possible alternatives. Don’t think about vowels—just think about meanings.
Review your list of words and sort them into long- and short-vowel words. (In a multisyllable word, sort them by the syllable that gets the most emphasis or stress).
Decide if you want a long or short vowel for the thing you’re writing about.
Choose from the appropriate list!
And that should do it!
Like all skills in poetry, the more you do this, the easier it will become. In fact, it will even become part of your unconscious strategies for choosing words, allowing you to create richer soundscapes effortlessly!
But you do gotta do the hard work a few times first, so…
Next Steps
Pick a poem you’ve already got drafted.
Go through the poem, looking for one place were long vowels would be appropriate for the feeling you want to create, but you’ve used a short vowel.
Use the method in the last section to find a long-vowel word to slot in instead.
Now look for a place where a short vowel would be best, but you’ve used a long one, and find a short-vowel replacement for that word.
Now you’ve enhanced the aural landscape of your poem! And readers will notice and respond, even if they never stop to think about the vowels
