POETIC DEVICES
And Examples
Alliteration
■ The repetition of a beginning sound
■
Rain reigns roughly through the day.
Raging anger from the sky
Partners prattle of tormented tears
From clouds wondering why
Lightning tears their souls apart.
Allusion
■ A casual reference to someone or something in history
or literature that creates a mental picture.
■
A Common Woman
No Helen of Troy she,
Taking the world by war,
But a woman in plain paper wrapped
With a heart of love untapped,
She waits, yearning for her destiny
Whether it be a he on a charger white
Or one riding behind a garbage truck.
Caesura
■ The pausing or stopping within a line of poetry
caused by needed punctuation.
■
Living, breathing apathy
Saps energy, will, interest,
Leaving no desire to win.
All that’s left are ashes,
Cinders of what might have been.
Enjambment
■ The continuation of thought from one line of poetry
to the next without punctuation needed at the end of
the previous line(s).
■
Looking through the eyes
Of wonder, of delight,
Children view their world
With trust, with hope
That only life will change.
Hyperbole
■ Extreme exaggeration for effect.
■
Giants standing tall as mountains
Towering over midgets
Bring eyes above the common ground
To heights no longer small.
Metaphor
■ The comparison of two unlike things by saying one is the
other.
■
Sunshine, hope aglow,
Streams from heaven’s store
Bringing smiles of warming grace
Which lighten heavy loads.
Clouds are ships in full sail
Racing across the sky-blue sea.
Wind fills the cotton canvas
Pushing them further away from me.
Onomatopoeia
■ The sound a thing makes.
■
Roaring with the pain
Caused by flashing lightning strikes,
Thunders yells, “Booooom! Craaaashhhh! Yeow!”
Then mumbles, rumbling on its way.
Oxymoron
■ The use of contradictory terms (together).
■
Freezing heat of hate
Surrounds the heart
Stalling, killing kindness,
Bringing destruction to the start.
Personification
■ The giving of human traits to non-human things
incapable of having those traits.
■
Anger frowns and snarls,
Sending bolts of fire from darkest night
That bring no brilliance,
Rather only added blackness of sight.
Simile
■ The comparison of two unlike things by saying one is like or as
the other.
■
Sunshine, like hope aglow,
Streams from heaven’s sky
Bringing smiles of warming grace
On breeze whispers like a sigh.
Clouds are like ships in full sail
Racing across the sky-blue sea.
Wind fills the cotton canvas
Pushing them further away from me.
Symbol
■ Something which represents something else besides
itself.
■
The dove, with olive branch in beak,
Glides over all the land
Searching for a place to light.
Storms of war linger on every hand,
Everywhere the hawk does fight.
Imagery
■ The use of words to create a mental picture.
■ A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way.
Mood
■ The emotional effect of a poem or a story.
■ For the moon never beams
Without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
Irony
■ The expression of one’s meaning by using language
that normally signifies the opposite, typically for
humorous or emphatic effect.
■ Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.