Poetry has emotion, imagery, meaning, beauty, dignity, rhythm, sometimes rhyme, a different disposition that can include investment and concreteness in its images.
One way to achieve the qualities so essential for making poetic words is through the use of poetic devices. We will not begin to cover all known poetic terms or devices. Rather, we will discuss and use some of the best known and most used.
The most used poetic terms and resources are shown below. Hopefully, with the examples given, everyone can better understand some of the ways to make poetry, well, more poetic. The examples used are my own poetry and are copyrighted to my name.
Poetry Devices (an important sample):
alliteration: the repetition of an initial sound.
Rain reigns approximately throughout the day.
Raging rage from the sky
Partners chatter with tormented tears
From the clouds wondering why
Lightning tears their souls.
In the first two lines, the r sound is repeated. In the third line p begins two contiguous words.
innuendo: a casual reference to someone or something in history or literature that creates a mental image.
An ordinary woman
Not Helen of Troy her,
Taking the world for war
But a woman wrapped in plain paper
With an untapped love heart
She waits longing for her destiny
Whether it’s a he in a white charger
Or someone traveling behind a garbage truck.
Maybe instead a student room
Lurks in the shadows of your life
Needing your interest to be shown.
However, other concerns may call
No, not Helen of Troy her,
But a woman set 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 similar to the other.
Day trip
The day dawns like a journey.
First one leaves the station on a train,
Running past other places
No pause or stop
See blurry faces through the window
There is no time to say goodbye.
Over and over the train speeds up
Until the end of the line that one sees
Another sunset below
No lasting memories.
The whole poem creates an analogy, the comparison of a day and a train trip.
caesura: the pause or pause within a line of poetry caused by the necessary punctuation.
Living, breathing apathy
It drains the energy, the will, the interest,
Without leaving the desire to win.
All that’s left is ashes
Ashes of what could have been.
The punctuation within the lines (in this case, all commas) is the caesura, not the punctuation at the end of the lines.
crossing: the continuation of thought from one line of poetry to the next without the necessary 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.
Enjambement is at the end of lines 1, 3 and 4 because punctuation was not necessary in those places.
hyperbola: extreme exaggeration for effect.
Giants tall like mountains
Rising above the dwarves
Bring your eyes above the common ground
At heights that are no longer small.
Tree trunk arms wrap
With soft comfort, softness
Without thinking about it due to the size,
However, welcome in your strength.
The giants are not as tall as the mountains, nor the arms of the tree trunks, but the use of exaggeration helps to create the desired image.
metaphor: the comparison of two different things by saying that one is the other.
Sun, shining hope
Streams from heaven’s tent
Bringing smiles of warm grace
That lighten heavy loads.
The clouds are ships under full sail
Running through the azure 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 one 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 is meant without exactly who it is directly addressed to.
onomatopoeia: the sound that makes a thing
Roaring with the pain
Caused by flashing lightning,
Thunders yells, “Booooom! Craaaashhhh! Yeow!”
Then he mutters, rumbling his way.
Grrrr, the lion’s cry resounds
Through the jungle lair
Causing small creatures
Run to their holes.
Roaring, rumbling, crying are not examples of onomatopoeia, but they are verb forms. Boooom, craaaashhh, yeow, and grrrrr are examples of onomatapoeia.
oxymoron: the use of contradictory terms (together) to give effect.
Freezing heat of hate
Surrounds the heart
Holding on, killing goodness
Bringing destruction to the beginning.
Freezing and heat are contradictory, opposite, but the two together create a mental image.
personification: give human traits to non-human things incapable of having those traits.
Anger frowns and growls,
Sending rays of fire from the darkest night
That do not bring shine
Rather it just added blackness to the sight.
Frowning and growling are human traits that anger cannot experience; however, using them as anger traits creates the necessary images.
simile: the comparison of two different things by saying that one is the same or like the other.
Sun, like shining hope,
Streams of heaven from heaven
Bringing smiles of warm grace
In the breeze it whispers like a sigh.
The clouds are like ships under full sail
Running through the azure 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 says 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 an olive branch in its beak,
It slides over all the land
Looking for a place to illuminate.
Storms of war linger everywhere,
Everywhere the hawk fights.
The dove is a symbol of peace and the falcon is a symbol of war. Using them in poetry gives an image without having to explain in detail.
Other terms:
elegy: a lament poem (extreme pain, such as that caused by death)
Free verse: a poem without rhyme or rhythm scheme, although rhyme can be used, just without a pattern.
blank verse: non-rhyming 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 for vivid poetry, and devices help develop images.