Poetry has emotion, imagery, significance, beauty, dignity, rhythm, sometimes rhyme, a different arrangement which can include inversion, and concreteness in its images.
One way to attain the qualities so essential to making words poetic is through the use of poetry devices. We won't begin to cover all the known poetic devices or terms. Rather we'll discuss and use some of the more commonly known and used ones.
Below are the more commonly used poetic devices and terms. We hope that all the examples can better understand some of the ways in which poetry, and more poetic. The examples given are my poems and they are copyrighted in my name.
Devices of poetry (a large sample size):
Alliteration: The repetition of initial sounds.
Rain reigns around all day.
Anger rages from the sky
Partners talk with tears tormented
From clouds wondering why
Lightning tears their souls apart.
In the first twoLines, the r sound is repeated. In the third line p starts two adjoining words.
Allusion: a reference to someone or something random in history or literature that creates a mental image.
An ordinary woman
Helen of Troy, they do not,
Among the world through war,
But a woman wrapped in plain paper
With a heart of love still untapped
Wait, yearning for her destiny
If you know of a charger
Or, to go behind a garbage truck.
PerhapsInstead of a room of students
Lurking in the shadows of his life
The need to show their interest.
But we must also mention other concerns
No, no, Helen of Troy,
But a woman of the world to subdue
Wherever they are.
Helen of Troy brings to mind a woman so beautiful that two countries went to war over them.
Analogy: a comparison between two things explained to show how it is similar to the other.
Day
The day dawns, asTravel.
First, a train leaving the station
Rushing past other places
Without a pause or stop,
Look at the faces blur through the window,
No time to say goodbye.
And the speed of the train
By the end of the line can be seen,
Another sunset down
No lasting memories.
The whole poem makes an analogy to compare a day and a train ride.
Caesura: the pausing or stopping in a line of poetry caused by the necessaryPunctuation.
Living, breathing apathy
Juices, energy, desire, interest,
They leave no desire to win.
All that remains are the ashes,
Ashes of what might have been.
Punctuation within the lines (in this case, all commas) are the turning point, not the punctuation at the end of lines.
enjambment: the continuation of the thought of a verse of a poem to the next without punctuation at the end of the previous line (n).
Looking through the eyes
OfWonder, joy,
The children see their world
With confidence, with hope
The only life will change.
Enjambment at the end of lines 1, 3 and 4 found, because the punctuation is not necessary in those places.
Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration effect.
Giants rising like mountains
High above dwarfs
Bring your gaze on a common basis
For no longer small heights.
Weapons of tree trunks wrapped
Comfort in the soft delicate
Unthoughtthe basis of size,
But the welcome in their strength.
Giants are not really as high as mountains, tree trunks are not weapons, but the use of exaggeration helps the image was created.
Metaphor, for example, the comparison of two unlike things, one is the other.
Sun, hope lights
Air flows from the store
Bringing smiles of warming grace
Such heavy loads easier.
Clouds are ships in full sail
Race across the sky blue of the sea.
Wind fills theCotton Canvas
Pushing them away from me.
In the first stanza, the sun is compared to hope, as compared to the second, the clouds and ships.
Metonymy: the substitution of a word to one in which they are intimately connected.
Scandals peep from every window,
They hide behind every hedge,
Wait pounce on the unwary,
While the White House creeps in awe.
White House is used in place of the president or the government, and readers to understandthat is, without exactly who that is directly addressed.
Onomatopoeia: the sound of what makes
Roaring through the pain
Caused by lightning flashes,
Thundering shouts: "Yeow BOOOOOM Craaaashhhh"
Then he mumbles, rumbling on its way.
Grrrr, echoing the cry of the lion
Through the jungle of the cave
Creatures that cause small
To rush into their holes.
Roaring, rumbling cry is, examples of onomatopoeia, but are verbs. Boooom,craaaashhh are examples onomatapoeia Yeow and grrrrr.
Oxymoron: The use of contradictory terms (together) for the effect.
Freezing heat of hate
Around the heart
Stall, killing kindness
Bringing destruction to departure.
Frost and heat are contradictory opposites, but the two together a mental picture.
Personification: the granting of human characteristics to nonhuman things are not capable of these properties.
He frowns and angergrowls,
Send bolts of fire from darkest night
This brings no gloss
Instead of seeing only black was added.
Frowning and snarling are human traits, can not experience anger, but it needs to function because of problems created from the images.
Parable, for example, the comparison of two unlike things, one is like one or the other.
Sun, as hope turns,
Flows from the heaven of heavens
Bringing smiles of warming grace
On breeze whispers like aSigh.
Clouds are like ships in full sail
Race across the sky blue of the sea.
Wind fills the cotton canvas
Pushing them away from me.
These two verses of poetry and metaphor are almost identical. Both metaphors and similes are comparisons of unlike things, but metaphor states one thing to another, as the parable says that one is like another, or the other.
Symbol: something that represents something other than themselves.
The dove with oliveBranch in its beak,
Slide across the country
Searching for a place to light.
Storms of war linger on every hand,
Throughout the Falcons not to fight.
The dove is a symbol of peace and the hawk is a symbol of war. With them in poetry is a painting, without explaining in detail.
Other terms:
Elegy: a poem of lament (extreme sadness, as caused by the death)
Free verse or a poem without a rhyme or a rhythm, rhyme even though they may be used,only without any reason.
Blank verse: un-rhymed lines of iambic pentameter (ten syllables with all the accented syllables also)
Images: The use of words to create a mental image
Mood: the emotional impact of a poem or story
The understanding and use of this equipment and the conditions can contribute to the strengthening and poetry. Imagery is essential for living the poetry, and the units in the development of visual language.
