Poetic Devices

Poetic Devices

Poetic devices, techniques, gimmicks - whatever you want to call them, there are "tricks" that make poems "work."

You see and hear poetic devices everyday – in poems, prose, song lyrics, and advertisements.

Alliteration

The repetition of the initial consonant sounds.

Example:terrible truths and lullaby lies

Imagery

Language that evokes sensory images.

Examples: drip of ruby teardrops (aural/sound) to wake up where the green grass grows

(visual/sight) lips like cool sweet tea (oral/taste) streaming through a velvet sky (tactile/touch) the stench of the underworld (olfactory/smell)

Metaphor

A comparison of unlike things (made without using like or as).

Example:I am the "Lone Star"

Onomatopoeia

A word that imitates the sound it represents.

Examples:The fly buzzed pastHe clattered and clanged as he

washed the dishes.

Personification

Giving human qualities or characteristics to animals or objects.

Examples:The tree groaned.The wind whispered.

Repetition

Repeating of words, phrases, lines, sounds, or stanzas.

Example:Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hopeBecause I do not hope to turn....

Rhyme

a pattern of words that contains similar sounds at the end of the line

Example:life for me

is wild and free

Simile

A comparison using like or as.

Example:notes dance across the page like stars

twinkle in the night sky

Please put next slide on new page or separate from your Poetic Devices

with a line as it is a new topic!

Rhyme scheme

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem or in lyrics for music.

It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme.

Example:Bid me to weep, and I will weep, A

While I have eyes to see; B

And having none, yet I will keep A

A heart to weep for thee. B

Please put next slide on new page or separate from your Poetic Devices

and Rhyme Scheme with a line as it is a new topic!

Point of view

The author's point-of-view concentrates on the speaker, or "teller", of the story or poem.

1st person: the speaker is a character in the story or poem and tells it from his/her perspective (uses "I")

Example: Then, turning to my love, I said,

`The dead are dancing with the dead, The dust is whirling with the dust.'

Point of view (con’t)

3rd person: the speaker is not part of the story, but tells about the other characters.

Example:His story is old,

His heart is young, He the strong, noble one.