Poetic Devices
Simile: Similes help us understand one thing by comparing it with another. We use similes when we say he runs like a deer or those clouds look like cottage cheese. To take a risk is like tickling a dragon. A simile will always use words LIKE or AS.
Examples:
Metaphor: A metaphor comes right out say says what it means. You're not like a toad, you are a toad! , she's my whole world. Turning one thing into something else helps us understand how a poet feels about the subject.
Examples:
Onomatopoeia: Break a stick for firewood, it snaps. Rain on a campfire hisses, and thunder rumbles. Words that sound like what they mean are called onomatopoeia. These words are usually fun to say, they add music to a poem. They're so expressive; some believe that they were the basis of human language.
Examples:
Alliteration: The repetition of usually short initial consonant sounds in two or more consecutive words or syllables.
Examples:
Hyperbole: An exageration or overstatement intended to produce an effect without being taken literally.
Examples:
Imagery: Language that evokes sensory images (appeals to your eyes, ears, nose, and touch)
For example: visual/sight: To wake up where the green
grass grows.
oral/taste: Lips like cool sweet tea.
tactile/touch: Streaming through a velvet
sky.
olfactory/smell: The stench of the
underworld.
Examples:
Personification: Giving human qualities or characteristics to animals or objects.
Examples:
Examples:
- He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow." (George Eliot, Adam Bede)
- "Human speech is like a cracked cauldron on which we bang out tunes that make bears dance, when we want to move the stars to pity." (Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary)
- "Humanity, let us say, is like people packed in an automobile which is traveling downhill without lights at terrific speed and driven by a four-year-old child. The signposts along the way are all marked 'Progress.'" (Lord Dunsany)
- "Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep." (Carl Sandburg)
- "My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain." (W.H. Auden)
Metaphor: A metaphor comes right out say says what it means. You're not like a toad, you are a toad! , she's my whole world. Turning one thing into something else helps us understand how a poet feels about the subject.
Examples:
- "The streets were a furnace, the sun an executioner." (Cynthia Ozick, "Rosa")
- "But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill."(William Sharp, "The Lonely Hunter")
- "I can mingle with the stars, and throw a party on Mars; I am a prisoner locked up behind Xanax bars." (Lil Wayne, "I Feel Like Dying")
- "Men's words are bullets, that their enemies take up and make use of against them." (George Savile, Maxims)
- "A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind."(Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors)
- "The rain came down in long knitting needles." (Enid Bagnold, National Velvet)
- "Language is a road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going."(Rita Mae Brown)
Onomatopoeia: Break a stick for firewood, it snaps. Rain on a campfire hisses, and thunder rumbles. Words that sound like what they mean are called onomatopoeia. These words are usually fun to say, they add music to a poem. They're so expressive; some believe that they were the basis of human language.
Examples:
- 'Click the button and take a picture'.
- 'Listen to the fire crackle in the dark' .
- 'Don't forget to flush the toilet'.
- 'A long kiss is something you won't forget'.
- 'The bar is a ratchet in the machine'.
- 'Dave whooshed down the hill'.
Alliteration: The repetition of usually short initial consonant sounds in two or more consecutive words or syllables.
Examples:
- Alice’s aunt ate apples and acorns around August
- Becky’s beagle barked and bayed, becoming bothersome for Billy.
- Carries cat clawed her couch, creating chaos.
- Dan’s dog dove deep in the dam, drinking dirty water as he dove.
- Eric’s eagle eats eggs, enjoying each episode of eating.
- Fred’s friends fried Fritos for Friday’s food.
- Garry’s giraffe gobbled gooseberry’s greedily, getting good at grabbing goodies.
- Hannah’s home has heat hopefully.
- Isaacs ice cream is interesting and Isaac is imbibing it.
- Jesse’s jaguar is jumping and jiggling jauntily.
Hyperbole: An exageration or overstatement intended to produce an effect without being taken literally.
Examples:
- "I have seen this river so wide it had only one bank." - Mark Twain
- My eyes widened at the sight of the mile-high ice cream cones we were having for dessert.
- Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together. ~ Kent Brockman (The Simpsons)
- These books in your bag weigh a ton.
- I am so tired I could sleep for a year.
- I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse right now.
- He is older than the hills.
- I will die if she asks me to dance.
Imagery: Language that evokes sensory images (appeals to your eyes, ears, nose, and touch)
For example: visual/sight: To wake up where the green
grass grows.
oral/taste: Lips like cool sweet tea.
tactile/touch: Streaming through a velvet
sky.
olfactory/smell: The stench of the
underworld.
Examples:
- He fumed and charged like an angry bull.
- He fell down like an old tree falling down in a storm.
- The taste of that first defeat was bitter indeed.
- He felt like the flowers were waving him a hello.
- The eery silence was shattered by her scream.
- After that first sale, his cash register never stopped ringing.
- The sky looked like the untouched canvas of an artist.
- He could hear his world crashing down when he heard the news about her.
- She was like a melody in flesh and blood.
- The F-16 swooped down like an eagle after its prey.
Personification: Giving human qualities or characteristics to animals or objects.
Examples:
- Kleenex says bless you. (Kleenex facial tissues)
- Nothing hugs like Huggies. (Huggies Supreme diapers)
- Unwrap a smile. (Little Debbie snack cakes)
- Goldfish. The snack that smiles back (Goldfish snack crackers)
- Carvel. It's what happy tastes like. (Carvel ice cream)
- Cottonelle. Looking out for the family. (Cottonelle toilet paper)
- The toilet tissue that really cares for Downunder. (Bouquets toilet paper, Australia)
- You're in good hands with Allstate. (Allstate Insurance Company)