Alliteration in Poetry

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Alliteration in Poetry
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Remember when you were little and enjoyed tongue
twisters like

• She sells sea shells by the seashore.
• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a
  woodchuck could chuck wood?

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• These tongue twisters are examples of a literary
  device used by writers, especially poets, to
  create interesting sounds in their work.
• This device is called alliteration.

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Alliteration

• the repetition of beginning consonant sounds to
  create a mood or feeling in writing.

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Notice the beginning sounds

• She sells sea shells by the seashore.
• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a
  woodchuck could chuck wood?

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• Writers generally don't repeat these consonant
  sounds quite as often as they are repeated in
  tongue twisters! If they did it might distract
  the reader.
• Instead alliteration is used more selectively to
  help set a mood or to repeat a sound that occurs
  in life.

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• Read the following poem and look for the use of
  alliteration

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A Hippo's a Heap
by Beverly Mcloughland

• A hippo's a heap
• About to pop,
• He's so colossal
• He'd better stop --
• He's chock full of chow
• With no more room --
• Just one more swallow and
• KA-BOOM!

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In this poem about a hippopotamus, Beverly
Mcloughland uses alliteration to add to the fun
by not only using rhyming words to create sound
but alliteration too.

• A hippo's a heap
• About to pop,
• He's so colossal
• He'd better stop --
• He's chock full of chow
• With no more room --
• Just one more swallow and
• KA-BOOM!

• Did you notice the repeated H sound in the
  title and the first line, "A hippo's a heap" and
  the repeated CH sound in the line, "He's chock
  full of chow"?
• Alliteration is used here to add to the fun sound
  of the poem and works along with the rhyming
  words to do this.

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In Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson,
alliteration is found in these lines

• "The sun began to shine upon the summit of the
  hills as I went down the road..."

What beginning consonant sound is repeated?
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Now try this quote from Kidnapped. How many
examples of alliteration can you find here?

• "He cast about for a comfortable seat, lighted on
  a big boulder under a birch by the trackside, sat
  down upon it with a very long, serious upper lip,
  and the sun now shining in upon us between two
  peaks, put his pocket-handkerchief over his
  cocked hat to shelter him."

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How many examples of alliteration did you find?
"He cast about for a comfortable seat, lighted on
a big boulder under a birch by the trackside, sat
down upon it with a very long, serious upper lip,
and the sun now shining in upon us between two
peaks, put his pocket-handkerchief over his
cocked hat to shelter him."
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Write a poem using alliteration!

• Your poem must be at least eight lines long.
• You can separate it into stanzas if you like.
• You must use at least two alliteration sounds.