Scansion Art plays with using visual symbols to represent the rhythm, sounds, and devices used in poetry, expressing the development of patterns and overall shape of poetic forms.
Poem copyright by Kate Jo Westfall
Ink on handmade paper
About 18" x 22"
Framed poem and key about 10" 12"
Send a message if exact measurements are needed.
The Test of Legacy
Engraved above the ground, a stone is named
in hopes that future readers may perceive
the precious influence the namesake claimed,
perhaps, through research, learning to bereave
his work, his art, his loves, as others did,
yet take the archived comfort that he lived.
Therefore, relating, they may boldly bid
for what support his spirit’s strength can give.
It’s one death-duty still to love and serve,
to strengthen living souls that call their names,
becoming ghosts to bolster lonesome nerves.
And names are called according to their fame…
The famous never enter death’s safe zone.
Unrested ghosts, they’re never left alone.
Scansion Key
Each horizontal line represents a line of the poem.
Small shapes represent unstressed syllables.
Large shapes represent stressed syllables.
Shapes connected by a line represent multisyllabic words.
Assonance within a line is notated with a tiny circle at the upper left of a shape.
- A matching number of circles indicates separate matching vowel sounds.
Consonance within a line is notated with a diagonal line across corresponding shapes.
- Matching directions indicate separate matching consonant sounds.
Outer markings at the end of each line that point in the same direction indicate a rhyme.
