Children's Poetry & Limerick Visualizations

Visualizing connections and repetitions or rhyme and meter in childrens poetry by using connecting arcs. This series of posters was generated by a custom computer program which actively updates the poster as a poem is typed. This representation was designed to aid children who are more visually than literally inclined understand and appreciate the structures of poetry.

The arcs represent rhyme, alliteration, homophone and repetition. Steps underneath the line represent rhythm. You can see these elements clearly represented in the classic childrens poem: ”Hickory Dickory Dock“.

How it works

The resulting piece is a program which dynamically renders the visualization as the poem is typed. A simplified text to speech engine is used to break down the poem into individual phonemes, so that “Once upon a time” becomes “w-ah-n-s ax-p-aa-n ey t-ay-m” these phonemes can then be identified in patterns representative of alliteraton, rhyme and rhythm.

Discovery within complex poetry

Interesting discoveries are made within complex poetry. Take for instance the poem “It's Dark in Here” by Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic (1981), there are many secondary and tertiary rhyme structures that exist within the main wrapping repetition.

Another interesting example is Shel Silverstein's ”Boa Constrictor“, which uses interesting rhyme and repetition patterns clearly defining two sections of the poem.

Limerick Assistance

The same rhyming engine was applied in a different way to create a limerick writing application. As you type the program keys you in to how many syllables are remaining for your line, when writing a line that must rhyme with a previous line, words are presented in the order that they may fit. As you run out of remamining syllables the words become shorter, if you begin to type a word, words that begin with what letters you have typed so far are presented.

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References

• The Shape of Song
  Martin Wattenburg
• A Light in the Attic
  Shel Silverstein