Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable.
Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
To convey one’s mood in seventeen syllables is very diffic
Democracy has become, unless I mistake, a kind of test or shibboleth, by which we try men and measures; and this is the same as to say that it is merely a word which is powerful with us, and not the wide and true notion of what the word means. But we must define the true import of words, and not be slaves to syllables; for democracy in form is not necessarily people-power in fact, but power perhaps of a few, who cajole the many and so lead and use the people for their own ends.
Got more milky syllables than alphabet cereals.
In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables.
The most reserved of men, that will not exchange two syllables together in an English coffee-house, should they meet at Ispahan, would drink sherbet and eat a mess of rice together.
Rhythm and sounds are born with syllables.
DNA is an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleicantidisestablishmentarianism, a complex string of syllables.
You're from where?" "Lay'en. It's near Salt Lake City. " "Spell that for me. " "Um, that would be S-A-L-T-" "No, the other one. The city you're from. " "Oh. L-A-Y-T-O-N. " "Ah-Lay-ton. " That's what I said. " "No you didn't. You just said, 'Lay'en. '" "So I did. But just go ahead and pronounce 'aluminum' for me, Mr. British Man. How are you going to defend that piece of insanity? Why don't you spell it and count syllables and see if your al-um-in-ium makes sense whatsoever?" He bowed his head. "Touch. . .
Why are there five syllables in the word “monosyllabic”?
It seems to me that the contrast between adjacent syllables has lessened and the result is an over-reliance on enjambment. Now enjambment is a fine, intellectually strong aid, but like all such things it becomes tiresome and calls too much attention to itself.
that darkest of syllables, death.
We are only syllables of the perfect Word.
The more syllables a euphemism has, the further divorced from reality it is.
A person rises on a word and falls on a syllable.
All great song, from the first day when human lips contrived syllables, has been sincere song.
Italian is a very different poetic situation and there are these hard and fast rhythmic periods, settenari, ottonari of seven and eight syllables. These are fundamental to the way people speak and write and breaking them is more radical in Italian than when we break a line. I'm sure there are Italian poets who want to write poetry as prose and break these Petrarchan rules. And breaking them is fun and a valid thing to do. But I'm more interested in trying to write poetry that absorbs tradition and uses it in new ways, and doesn't throw it out.
I love the language, it sounds as if it should be writ on satin with syllables which breathe of the sweet South
Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her wit: "an unusual combination," in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of her.
