grace note

There is a manner of gracing the notes or accents in reading, as in singing, but which is always at pleasure. This grace note in music is called appoggiatura, that is, supporter, insinuator. As the quantities of these little notes in music are always taken out of the next note that follows, so it is in speech. Instead of a plain acute accent, thus /, we may use, which corresponds exactly with the small musical grace note, a little circumflex grave-accute, thus ⎝; or acute-grave, thus ⎞; …

These concerns, often given mythic expression, explore the common human element in diverse experience: the poet [Rita Dove] touches the grace notes of famous and unknown lives, past and present.