Sounds have Meaning?

In class we have been talking a lot about how the sound of words can add meaning to a passage, line, poem, or any other work of literature. To be honest, I don’t really think that I buy it. The best example I have to demonstrate this skepticism that I have was when I was reading in poem in my English class a few years ago, and my teacher was convinced that the repetition of the “p” sound was intentionally put there to mimic the sound of gunfire.

I think that often we are subject of over analyzing whatever we are reading, and in the end we make something out of nothing. The following graphic is a depiction of this stance that one of my friends had posted up on Facebook (pardon the language).

I find that over analyzing just beats any piece of writing to death and makes me end up disliking many of the books that I read in school simply because I believe that we over analyzed them and attempted to synthesize meaning that simply wasn’t there. And for me, this idea of the sound of words having meaning seems too far-fetched. When I tried to get people to help me understand this apparently logical idea, I’ve gotten clear explanations like, “It makes sense to me.” or my personal favorite, “I play music so that’s why I understand it.” Well, I play music too and have been for longer than most people I know, and it still isn’t clear.

So I guess that I asking if there is anyone who can give a clear explanation of this concept because if I am missing something that is really cool from a literary stance, than I want to understand. I also don’t want an answer like, “Some people get and some people don’t.” It’s like understanding this concept is having membership to an exclusive club where the only way to become a member is to know the secret, but members aren’t allowed to tell the secret to anyone. There is nothing more frustrating.