How to use Figurative Language and Poetic Devices in Poetry

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How to use Figurative Language and Poetic Devices
in Poetry

• Dont think about the process as randomly
  sticking a bunch of figurative language into your
  poem.
• You want to use figurative language and poetic
  devices as tools to help you express ideas in
  your poem.
• So you have to start with the ideas--what are you
  trying to say?

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Start with an IDEA

• Lets say your poem is about a specific painful
  experience with unrequited love.
• Unrequited love is when you love someone or have
  romantic feelings for a person, but he or she
  doesnt love you back or feel the same way.
• Sothe idea youre trying to express in the poem
  is how much that hurt!

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METAPHOR

• Youre the captain of recess dodge ball and Im
  that slow-moving, loser kid that you dont want
  to choose for your team.
• Im an Almond Joy but you dont like coconut.
• I set my heart upon your tee,
• And you drove it into a sand trap.

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SIMILE

• When I told you how I felt, it was like I was the
  Dominos delivery guy, bringing you a pizza you
  didnt order or even want.

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HYPERBOLE

• Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter
  quite like unrequited love. Charlie Brown

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PERSONIFCATION (and more)

• Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest  Love,
  hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers Love,
  nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,  And
  weaves itself into my midnight slumbers! Poet,
  William S. Gilbert
• Your rejection punched me in the gut and then
  tossed me into a ditch.

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ALLUSION

• I asked you outI went big and large,
• But lost the battle, like Picketts Charge.
• During the Civil Wars Battle of Gettysburg,
  Pickett's Charge was an infantry assault ordered
  by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee against the
  union that was total failure.

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What Counts as Alliteration?

• We beat the drums and we bask in the sun.
• With only two words, they must be nearly side by
  side to make alliteration.
• We beat books and bats in the sun.
• Orif you space the words out, you need a bunch
  of them to make alliteration.
• The tiger dipped his tongue into the two-liter
  bottle of truth.

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What Counts as Alliteration?

• The summer circus clowns scared me.
• Noticethough summer and circus start with
  different letters, the same consonant sound is
  repeated.
• circus clowns is NOT alliteration because
  though both words begin with c, they have
  different consonant sounds.

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What Counts as Assonance?

• We pet the dogs and wonder about frogs.
• With only two words, they must be nearly side by
  side to make assonance.
• The frogs on logs pause.
• Notice that logs and pause, though spelled
  differently and unrhymed, contain the same vowel
  soundand, thus, is an example of assonance.

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Parallel Structure

• Rememberparallel structure is NOT just about
  repeating words, its about repeating a
  grammatical structure.
• Your words stung, (poss. pronoun/noun/past tense
  verb)
• My heart stopped (poss. pronoun/noun/past
  tense verb)