Sounds like...

Onomatopoeia is when a word imitates or sounds like how it is spelt, such as pop, cackle, gurgle, sizzle and the like. Our first task today was to brainstorm all the words we could think of and write them on small notes of paper. We then randomly drew three and wrote a poem or short story using them. Finally for an added challenge we attempted another story or poem using as many as we could. It's fun to use these words and it forces us to try new ways of writing.

 

AT THE FAIR

At the fair I was eating toffee apples 

savouring their crunch.

I was carrying a toy windmill 

which whirred as it spun from nowhere to nowhere.

Trapped inside the swish of air 

which propelled it there and everywhere 

but never here.

I grabbed a bottle of pop, and it's hiss hypnotised me

drawing me further and further into its saccharine depths.

I gurgled, choked by my own greed

and heard the crackle of my soul which I had sold

for a glimpse of sweetness.

Tick, tock goes the clock

Fire burning, guitar rock

I'm stuck in the depths

And not at the top

I had a zip code but I undid it and out fell

a mass of lies and deceit.

And that's where the fair turned into fear

and the clock of my life turned inexorably forward,

trapped like a match stick in its box.

- M.F.

BARBECUE (onomatopoeia)

Tick tick                tick tick                 tick tick, tick tick

pop        hiss        chink     gurgle                  

crunch  pop        hiss        gurgle                   chink

sizzle     crackle                                 crunch  sizzle     crackle

buzz       crunch                                 buzz       buzz       chink

pop   hiss    buzz    crunch    crackle   sizzle    buzz    buzz

- Kate Jenkins

TASK - use the words 'crunch, gurgle and tick'

He stamped his foot, over and over.  With a heavy crunch his boot broke through the hard layer of ice and slipped on the wet clay beneath.  Time was slipping away, tick tick, tick tick, and his anxiety levels were peaking.  Somewhere under here the burst pipe was draining all the water from the tank – water he needed for the winter cleanup of the cowshed. He only had five cows but they made an awful mess when being milked.  He had to wash down and sweep the shed floor dry before all the poo froze to it.  Tick tick, tick tick.  After breaking two square metres of ice he found a flow of water, and, stamping harder, he followed the course of the pipe back up the yard to a split, where the water gurgled quietly out and spread onto the ground. He glared at the split then took his spade and carefully dug around, above and beneath the burst pipe.  He’d expected more water to be spurting out, not just this slow flow.  Wrapping his hands around the pipe above and below the break he found it solid with ice inside, bulging with frozen power.   He wiped the pipe clean and wrapped the break with tape then, in the kitchen he took warm water from the kettle and returned to the yard to pour it carefully around the freezing ice, starting at the bottom to let the water flow again.  

Three meters down the yard, where he had first stamped his foot, a small stream of water gurgled upwards.

- Kate Jenkins