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 to make 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

Be it a man with 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

Towering over 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 because of the size,

However, welcome in your strength.

The giants are not as tall as mountains, nor are the arms of 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 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

Surround 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 bolts 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: using 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.