Sara Trevisan wrote:

> Hey Fran --
>
> Thanks for the challenge -- it's nice to have some fun every now and then.
>
> One peculiarity I noticed. I'd never heard of this Mr Peake, but he
> must be American, anyway. In fact, the rhyme tunes/moons works only
> for American English speakers. /t/ is a coronal and there's a
> different pronounciation in AE and BE for /t/ when it's located in
> front of /u/. In AE it's pronounced /tu/, whereas in BE the
> pronounciation is /tju/. So, in the USA /tuns/ is a rhyme to /muns/;
> in UK, /tjuns/ is not.
>
> I mean, it's unbelievable all the stuff a poet must take into
> consideration before writing a rhyming pattern.
>
> Cheers--
> Sara



Dear Sara,
    And thank you for the challenge. I first thought you were wrong,
since the /tj/ is consonantal and doesn't affect the vowel, as in "chop"
rhyming with "cop." But as I sit here and tune my American tongue to a
British tune, I understand what you mean about the vowel being changed.
 Yet, I think in practice the sounds would accommodate themselves, so
that only a very finicky tongue or ear would not find most British
tunes/moons as less than full rhymes. ... I think, but am not sure.

    I think, too, that your final verse is very nice.

    It rises through the rocks,
    it thunders, echoes loud
    within deaf mental locks,
    just noticed by a cloud.

You have a lovely pause before beginning "echoes" with its
stress--seeming to reverse the pattern, but not doing so. And you've
thoughtfully removed Peake's nauseous

    throw up their lime-green spray

(Hard not to think--especially in the neighborhood of "viscous"--that
"spray" is "spew.")



Marcia