Poetry has emotion, images, meaning, beauty, dignity, rhythm, sometimes rhyme, a different arrangement that can include inversion and concreteness in its images.
One way to achieve the qualities so essential to making poetic words is through the use of poetic devices. We will not begin to cover all known poetic devices or terms. Rather, we will discuss and use some of the more well-known and used ones.
Below are the most used poetic resources and terms. Hopefully, with the examples given, everyone can better understand some of the ways of making poetry, well, more poetic. The examples used are my own poetry and are copyrighted in my name.
poetry devices (an important sample):
alliteration: the repetition of an initial sound.
Rain reigns approximately during the day.
angry angel from heaven
Partners chattering with tormented tears
From the clouds wondering why
Lightning bolts shatter their souls.
In the first two lines the sound of the r is repeated. On the third line p begins two adjoining words.
innuendo: a casual reference to someone or something in history or literature that creates a mental image.
a common woman
Not Helen of Troy she,
Taking the world by war,
But a woman in plain paper wrapped
With a heart of untapped love,
She waits, longing for her fate
Whether a he in a white boot
Or one mounted behind a garbage truck.
Maybe instead of a student room
It lurks in the shadows of your life
Needing to show your interest.
However, other concerns may call
No, not Helen of Troy she,
But a woman put the world to tame
Wherever she is.
Helen of Troy remembers a woman so beautiful that two countries went to war over her.
analogy: the comparison of two things explaining one to show how it is like the other.
One day trip
The day dawns like a journey.
The first leaves the station on a train,
Running past other places
without pause or stop,
Looking at blurred faces through the window,
There is no time to say goodbye.
Over and over again the train speeds up
Until the end of the line you see,
Another sunset below
Without any lasting memory.
The whole poem creates an analogy, the comparison of a day and a train ride.
caesura: the pause or stop within a line of poetry caused by the necessary punctuation.
Living, breathing apathy
Draw energy, will, interest,
Without wanting to win.
All that’s left are ashes
Ashes of what could have been.
The punctuation inside the lines (in this case, all commas) are the caesura, not the punctuation at the ends of the lines.
encompassing: the continuation of thought from one line of poetry to the next without the need for punctuation at the end of the previous line(s).
looking through the eyes
Of amazement, of delight,
Children see their world
With confidence, with hope
That only life will change.
The enjambment is found at the end of lines 1, 3, and 4 because no punctuation was needed at those places.
hyperbola: extreme exaggeration for effect.
Giants standing like mountains
Rising above the dwarfs
Bring your eyes above the common ground
At heights that are no longer small.
Tree trunk arm wrap
In soft comfort, softness
Unthinkable because of the size,
However, welcome in your strength.
The giants aren’t really tall like mountains, nor are the arms tree trunks, but the use of exaggeration helps create the desired image.
metaphor: the comparison of two different things saying that one is the other.
Sun, shining hope,
Sky Store Currents
Bringing smiles of warm grace
That lighten heavy loads.
The clouds are ships at full sail
Running through the sky blue sea.
The wind fills the cotton canvas
Pushing them further away from me.
In the first stanza, sunlight is compared to hope, while in the second, clouds are compared to ships.
metonymy: the substitution of a word for another with which it is closely associated.
Scandals peek out of every window,
Hide behind every hedge
Waiting to pounce on the unwary,
As the White House cringes in dismay.
The White House is used in place of the president or the government, and readers understand what it means without exactly who is directly addressed.
onomatopoeia: the sound that something makes
roaring with bread
Caused by lightning flashes,
Thunders yells, “Booooom! Craaaashhhh! Yeah!”
Then he mutters, rumbling his way.
Grrrr, the lion’s cry resounds
Through the jungle lair
Causing small creatures
To run to their holes.
Roaring, thunderous, crying are not examples of onomatopoeia, but verb forms. Boooom, craaaashhh, yeow, and grrrrr are examples of onomatopoeia.
oxymoron: the use of contradictory terms (together) for effect.
icy heat of hate
surround the heart
stagnating, killing goodness,
Bringing destruction to the beginning.
Freezing and heat are contradictory, opposites, but the two together create a mental image.
personification: giving human traits to non-human things incapable of having those traits.
Anger frowns and growls,
Sending lightning bolts from the darkest night
that do not bring shine,
Rather it just added blackness of the view.
Frowning and growling are human traits that anger cannot experience; however, using them as traits of anger creates the necessary images.
Similary: the comparison of two different things saying that one is the same or like the other.
Sun, like shining hope,
Sky Sky Streams
Bringing smiles of warm grace
In the breeze it whispers like a sigh.
Clouds are like ships under full sail
Running through the sky blue sea.
The wind fills the cotton canvas
Pushing them further away from me.
These two stanzas of poetry and those of metaphor are almost identical. Both the metaphor and the simile are comparisons of different things, but the metaphor establishes that one thing is the other, while the simile says that one is like the other or like the other.
symbol: something that represents something else besides itself.
The dove, with olive branch in its beak,
It glides over all the land
Looking for a place to light.
Storms of war linger on every hand,
Everywhere the falcon fights.
The dove is a symbol of peace, and the falcon is a symbol of war. Using them in poetry gives a picture without having to explain in detail.
Other terms:
Elegant: a poem of lament (extreme pain, such as that caused by death)
Free verse: a poem without rhyme or rhythmic scheme, although rhyme can be used, just without pattern.
pours on white: unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter (ten syllables with all even syllables stressed)
images: the use of words to create a mental image
mood: the emotional effect of a poem or story
Understanding and using these devices and terms can help improve and strengthen poetry. Images are essential to vivid poetry and devices help develop images.
