The Word Plum: How Sound and Alliteration Create a Fascinating Poem

The purpose of poetry is to help people understand how the world works around them; it is to help readers comprehend that not everyone thinks alike on certain topics or issues. Poetry at times can make a reader feel confused or lost. There is poetry that is simple, and then there is poetry that is odd that needs to be read repeatedly or taken notes about to finally understand the point the author is trying to make. Poems can be written in diverse ways as long as they are able to captivate an audience. Even poems that have only three lines can still have the power to mesmerise readers, and this is because sometimes only one word can provoke many emotions. Throughout the years, poetry has been written to express various kinds of emotions such as anger, happiness, and sadness. In poems, writers utilize different techniques to create a message or theme. The poem, The Word Plum, written by Helen Chasin, utilizes sound and alliteration to convey the message of the poem, which is that words have the power to create emotions.

“The word plum is delicious” (1), in this line, Chasin is saying that the word plum is delicious, but does not say anything about the plum itself being delicious. How can a word become a flavor? If this line were to be rephrased, the words that would be looked at are the word plum, and delicious because the writer is not referring to plums specifically. Delicious can be associated with sweetness or pleasure. In the first line, what the writer is saying is that saying the word plum can bring pleasure to one’s mouth because of the way it sounds. People get this feeling of excitement when they hear a word that they really love. It is a fact that there are words that can cause irritation to some people, and words that can cause pleasure or excitement in their bodies. Hearing the word plum can bring back memories related to an experience in some specific event or moment of someone’s life.

The author uses alliteration as well in her poem. “Full in the mouth and falling like fruit” (4-5) alliteration is when the same letter appears in almost every word of a line, it can also be when words sound the same. In this line she is referring to the plum. The line “full in the mouth” could mean that eating a plum feels like there is no craving to eat anything else because the plum is such a delicious fruit. It can also imply that when saying the word plum, there is no need to say another word. When the author says falling like fruit, it can be hard to interpret what she means by this. There is simile used within the alliteration, the word like is used. If someone were to read this they might think of fruits falling from the trees. Falling is not something done on purpose; for example, when people fall in love, they do not have a say on who they will fall in love with, it just happens. Falling in love is a sweet feeling, and fruits taste sweet. When a person eats a plum, then it would fall into the stomach of a person which is a fruit that is tasty. The person would have pleasure because the plum is inside their stomach. The use of alliteration can make the readers interpret different ideas of what the author is trying to explain. Even though there is no rhyme in this alliteration, the words full and fruit are associated with the word plum, so this would be pleasing to hear for any person who loves plums or loves hearing the word plum.

To put it all together, sound and alliteration are like each other in a sense that both can make the readers become intrigued by the poem or by its message. It is not easy to find words that have the same letter in the beginning and have it become an interesting line in the poem. When certain words are said, the way they sound can cause positive emotions or negative emotions; when people hear the word plum, they think of pleasure and memories associated with that word which created happiness. The message of the poem The Word Plum is that words speak to peoples’ hearts and may cause them to go back in time within their memories when they hear certain words. Sound and alliteration are what makes a poem become beautifully written and most of all, they have the power to make a poem unforgettable.