Poetic Devices

Poetic devices are the tools that poets use when writing poems.
Some poetic devices include:
• structure
• rhythm
• rhyme
• sound play
• word play
• imagery.
Poetic Devices – Rhyme
I’m a poet
and I didn’t
know it!
 Rhyme – Example

Every night, at half past three,

A friendly alien visits me.
He stays until the break of day,
Then jumps in his ship and flies away!
 Poetic Devices – Sound Play
• Repetition (using a word or phrase several times)
• Alliteration (repetition of beginning consonant sound)
• Onomatopoeia (words that imitate a sound).
 Sound Play – Example
This poem uses sound play to recreate the sound of falling rain.
Repetition, alliteration and onomatopoeia have all been used.

Plop, plip, plop,

Drop, drip, drop,
Pitter patter, pitter patter,
Splosh, splish, splosh.
 Poetic Devices – Word Play
• Spoonerisms (switching sounds in a pair of words)
• Nonsense words (made-up words with no defined
meaning)
• Puns (jokes which play on the meanings of a word).
 Word Play – Example
Spoonerism
I think I’ll shake a tower instead!
Shake a tower is a play on the
sounds in ‘take a shower’.

Nonsense word Pun

I’ll schlozzle myself all over! Planets take meteor showers!
Schlozzle is a made-up word, though Shower has two meanings in this
the implied meaning is ‘wash’. sentence which creates word play.
 Poetic Devices – Imagery
Some of the ways that poets create images in poetry include:
• appealing to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch)
• using figurative language (simile and metaphor)
• create meaning through symbols.
 Imagery – Example

Sense of sight – Visual Imagery Sense of sound – Auditory Imagery

The ugly troll was fat and green, He roared, he grumbled, he stomped
His nose was large, his eyes were mean. around,
His deafening footsteps shook the ground.

Sense of smell – Olfactory Imagery  Sense of touch – Tactile Imagery

His smell was worse than mouldy cheese, His skin was coarse, his nose had bumps,
He reeked of dirt and lice and fleas. His scalp was covered in rock-like lumps.
 Figurative Language – Example

Metaphor Simile
His eyes were diamonds. He is like a shining star.

Personification Oxymoron
The sun smiled down on us. Deafening silence
Open secret
Awfully good