William Gillespie image by Miriam Martincic.

21-Consonant Poetry

A form of Serial Poetry in which every consonant must be used once before any can be used again, treating Y as a consonant, and for style using Y to produce a consonant sound (as in "Yes") and not a vowel sound (as in "Why"). Vowels may be used freely or further restrained.

This form enables many variations and techniques, many of them derived directly from 12-Tone Music. Sadly, an alphabetic interval (from J to N) is not quite analogous to a musical interval (from C to G), as the latter is the foundation of music, and the former is not very relevant to how language is used. A 20-Consonant matrix has been completed (in the back of a moving car at night) with the "all-interval row", but it proved more a mathematic recreation than a poetic one.

Source

Dominique Fitzpatrick-O'Dinn

Examples

View the previous 21-Consonant Site for further inspiration.

Works that use this form

forms are free

> Table of Forms Book
> Table of Forms Table > All Forms
> > > www.webworkwriting.com