Thursday, September 13, 2007

The International Poetic Alphabet (IPA)

a new, more creative phonetics transcription system

****
/i:k/
[a tea kettle's whistle
and hiss.
it stops
explodes
lets off steam]

/ɑɢʌ/
[pride sticks in my throat
half-swallowed]

/ʔʌ/
[a quick uh-oh of surprise
or pain]

/ɑɽʌ/
[some days
i am bent
flexed
backwards]

/ɑɬʌ/
[the wind outside brushes against
bare branches]

/əʀʌ/
[a storm builds--
heavy dark
far--
and thunder rolls]

/dɑ/
[what the thunder says]

****

Maybe I'm the only one who finds this concept funny. Whatever its other failings, though, this sort of IPA would make my phonetics assignments way more interesting.

3 comments:

mysh said...

Wow. Um ... freaking brilliant!

Th. said...

.

I didn't find it funny--I found it marketable. You should totally send this off.

Anonymous said...

I'm by no means a linguist, but I thought this was great. I especially appreciated your allusion to one of the better lines from the Waste Land at the end. May he rest in peace.