Neutral Tones

“Neutral Tones” is a 16-line lyric poem divided into four four-line stanzas. The poem does employ some narrative elements like character and setting but focuses on a singular remembered emotional moment relayed by the speaker. While the poem’s cadence seems to be quite even—the lines are equally divided into quatrains and seem of equal length—there is a subtle dissonance created by the use of meter. Metrically, the poem alternates between lines that employ iambs (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one) and anapests (a three-syllable pattern of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable). This helps to heighten the idea of two competing rhythms exhibited by the couple whose love is bandied about like their dialogue “to and fro” (Line 7). The end rhyme scheme is regular: ABBA CDDC EFFE GHHG. However, the use of internal rhyme—the internal “lay” (Line 3) rhyming with the end rhymes “day” (Line 1) and “gray” (Line 4)—as well as application of off-rhyme—as in “rove” (Line 5) and “love” (Line 8)—mitigate the sing-song quality of the verse and create an off-kilter feeling of subdued tension that belies the neutrality implied by the title.