How did onomatopoeia help Futurist poems convey the sounds of war and machines?

In the context of Futurism, onomatopoeia served as a vital tool for poets seeking to capture the intensity, noise, and ruthlessness of the early 20th century. By incorporating sound-mimicking words, writers aimed to make their language more intensive and immediate, effectively breaking away from traditional poetic constraints.12

This technique was particularly prominent in war poetry, where it was used to replicate the auditory experience of combat and machinery. A primary example is Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s work Zang tumb tumb (1914), where the title itself was designed to mimic the sound of artillery fire.12

Beyond individual words, Futurists integrated onomatopoeia into a broader "telegraphic lyricism" that stripped away adjectives and adverbs to prioritize action. This approach was often paired with a "typographical revolution," where the visual layout of the text—using varying font sizes and bold, dynamic arrangements—complemented the onomatopoeic sounds to reflect the chaos of battle and the mechanical energy of modern life. While the movement’s glorification of violence and war is a central, albeit controversial, aspect of its history, these linguistic innovations were fundamentally designed to express an ultramodern sensibility that rejected the past.123