Poetry Device Notes

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Poetry Device Notes

• Definition
• Use in Modern Day Language

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Simile

• Def 2 things are compared using like or as
• Lang Life is like a box of chocolates
• Example The Base Stealer

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• The Base Stealer
• by Robert Francis
• Poised between going on and back, pulledBoth
  ways taut like a tightrope-walker,Fingertips
  pointing the opposites,Now bouncing tiptoe like
  a dropped ballOr a kid skipping rope, come on,
  come on,Running a scattering of steps
  sidewise,How he teeters, skitters, tingles,
  teases,Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic
  bird,He's only flirting, crowd him, crowd
  him,Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate now!

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Metaphor

• Def 2 things compared without using like or
  as
• Lang that test was a piece pf cake
• Example The Garden Hose

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The Garden HoseBeatrice Janosco
In the gray evening I see a long serpentWith
its tail in the dahilas. It lies in loops across
the grassAnd drinks softly at the faucet. I can
hear it swallow.
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Symbol

• Def Word or image that represents something
  else
• Lang a heart symbolizes love
• Example Fifteen

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FifteenWilliam Stafford
South of the Bridge on Seventeenth I found back
of the willows one summerday a motorcycle with
engine running as it lay on its side, ticking
overslowly in the high grass. I was fifteen. I
admired all that pulsing gleam, theshiny flanks,
the demure headlights fringed where it lay. I
led it gently to the road and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen.
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• We could find the end of a road, meet
• the sky out on Seventeenth. I thought about
• hills, and patting the handle got back a
• confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged
• a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen.
• Thinking, back farther in the grass I found
• the owner, just coming to where he had flipped
• over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was
  pale-
• I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his
  hand
• over it, called me a good man, roared away.
• I stood there fifteen.

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Hyperbole

• Def an exaggerated statement used to heighten
  effect
• Lang yo mama jokes
• Yo mama so stupid it took her 2 hours to watch 60
  Minutes!
• Yo mama so ugly they filmed "Gorillas in the
  Mist" in her shower
• Example For a Hopi Silversmith

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For a Hopi SilversmithJoy Harjo
he has gathered the windstrength from the third
mesa into his handand cast it into silver I
have wanted to see the motion of the windfor a
long time thank youfor showing me
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Alliteration

• Def repetition of consonant sounds
• Lang Sally sells seashells by the seashore
• Example Fast Run in the Junkyard

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Run Fast in The JunkyardJeannette Nicholas
That junkyard fell down the side of the hilllike
a river baby buggy back leathercrackled car
back seat, sofa wind-siphonedby a clutch of
tangled wire hangers hanging onlike spiders. We
stood and fell as momentum told ustoward
somebodys sodden Sealy dying of galloping
miasmajumped on the bedsprings sprung to pogos,
an leaped for king-of-the-mountain where boxes
and cans fountainedup the hills other side.
Sailing saucers, we rode
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• back down, flinging hat racks, burlap sacks,
  chairs cropped
• of backs and flotsam crockery, breezed in league
• boots
• back out of everybodys past hazards, up to the
  road
• to break tar bubbles all-the-way-home where
  things
• were wearing out as fast as we were grwoing up.

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Personification

• Def giving human qualities to inanimate objects
• Lang the storm ruthlessly devoured everything
  in its path
• Example Guilt

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GuiltJames Kavanaugh
Guilt rides on his horse Like a weary
soldier, Sharpening his sword And looking for
a war, Ready to make anyones cause his
own,Then, when there is no war And no one needs
his anymore, wondering who he is. Finally he
dismounts And puts his sword away,Feeling bad
again Because he forgot to thank his horse.
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Onomatopoeia

• Def use of words to imitate sounds
• Lang Clap, boom
• Example The Rusty Spigot

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The Rusty SpigotEve Merriam
The rusty spigotsputters,uttersa
splutter,spatters a smattering of drops,gashers
widerslash,splatters,scatters,spurts,finally
stops sputteringand plash!gushes rushes
splashesclear water dashes.
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Allusion

• Def references to or reminder of something
• Example To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to
  Triumph

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To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to TriumphAnne
Sexton
Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings
on,testing that strange little tug at his
shoulder blade,and think of that flawless moment
over the lawn of the labyrinth. Think of the
difference it made! There below are the trees, as
awkward as camelsand here are the shocked
startlings pumping pastand think of innocent
Icarus who is doing quite welllarger than a
sail, over the fog and the blastof the plushy
ocean, he goes
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Apostrophe

• A figure of speech in which someone absent or
  dead OR something nonhuman is addressed as if it
  were alive and present.

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Apostrophe Examples

• Take Something Like a Star the poem begins, "O
  Star," He addresses the star throughout the poem.
  
• Tree at my Window He addresses the tree
  throughout "Tree at my window, window tree."
• Mending Wall speaking to the stones that make up
  the barrier, he says, "Stay where you are until
  our backs are turned!"