Poetic Devices

Rhymes  

The sun, the moon and the stars
The moon is the world's security guard 

but he only works at night

the stars are like his employees 

making sure everything goes right

 the sun is like the boss first to work, last to go 

but where he goes when he gets off the world will never know

Alliteration
         Soft 

smooth snowfalls 

silently from the sky.

 The snow is so silvery and small.

Slowly you slip and slide    

 on the snow

Onomatopoeia

When The Lights Go OutThe door went creak

In the still of the night

The floor went bump

Oh what a fright

All of a sudden, we heard a chime

The grandfather clock 

was keeping good time

We turned down a hallway and heard a loud crash

It seems that someone had dropped all the trash

So many sounds when the lights go out

It’s enough to make you scream and shout!

Simile
Rainbow

Struggles and success,
 Sufferings and happiness, 
Dreams and Goals building to life;
 Like colours of the rainbow making light.

Metaphor

Hope
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

“I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.”

–Emily Dickinson

Hyperbole

My Love

My love is a box
That is deep as the ocean.
My heart is a crater
Waiting to be filled.
My stomach, 
Impatiently waiting for your response,
Is a group  of drunken butterflies
Struggling to take flight.
What will you tell me?
Are you - my love?

Personification

Dinnertime Chorus

The teapot sang as the water boiled
The ice cubes cackled in their glass
the teacups chattered to one another.
While the chairs were passing gas
The gravy gurgled merrily
As the oil danced in a pan.
Oh my dinnertime chorus
What a lovely, lovely clan!

Symbolism

Cinquain Fourteen 

Lost 

under pile 

of red tape 

hoping I will

 be found

Free Verse

Barely tolerated, living on the margin

In our technological society, we were always having to be rescued

On the brink of destruction, like heroines in Orlando Furioso

Before it was time to start all over again.

There would be thunder in the bushes, a rustling of coils,…….

The whole thing might not, in the end, be the only solution……..

Came plowing down the course, just to make sure everything was O.K.…

About how to receive this latest piece of information.

Imagery

On a starry winter night in Portugal

Where the ocean kissed the southern shore

There a dream I never thought would come to pass

Came and went like time spent through an hourglass

-Teena Marie, “Portuguese Love”

Allusion 


Christy didn't like to spend money. 
She was no Scrooge, 
but she seldom purchased anything except the bare necessities
-Charles Dicken,Christmas carol

Rhythm

From:

Because I Could Not Stop For Death, by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

Compiled by Nadia Begum Nainish