Devices I
When words begin with the same sound
Alliteration
Describing something by comparing it to something else using the words like or as
Simile
An ordinary object, event, animal, or person to which are attached bigger ideals and/or meanings; something that represents a larger thing or idea
Symbol
A cave of delectable delights Food! Glorious Food! The bell screams in our ears It. Is. Time.
Personification
Farmer Brown has a problem. His cows like to type. All day long he hears: Click, clack, moo. Click, clack, moo. Clickety, clack, moo.
Onomatopoeia
When a word's meaning mirrors or matches its sound
Onomatopoeia
An indirect, brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological situation or story
Allusion
Hyperbole
We sprint like cheetahs in the queue, as quiet as mice So we don’t get sent to the back
Simile
“The two knitting women increase his anxiety by gazing at him and all the other sailors with knowing unconcern. Their eerie looks suggest that they know what will happen (the men dying), yet don’t care.”
Allusion (to the Fates)
Repeated vowel sounds in words next to one another
Assonance
Placing opposites next to one another for the sake of comparison
Juxtaposition
The speaker
I am a ravenous lion by now Ready to devour all before me I reach the portal The entrance to culinary heaven
Metaphor
“At that time Bogotá was a remote, lugubrious (looking/sounding sad or dismal) city where an insomniac rain had been falling since the beginning of the 16th century.”
Words that have different beginning sounds but which endings sound alike
Rhyme
Giving an inanimate object human characteristics
Personification
A word for a poem that celebrates or laments the coming of the dawn
Aubade
I'm often loud in places where I should be quiet
I'm often quiet in places where I should be loud
Juxtaposition
“In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribblings, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles, partially gnawed ice cream cones and wooden sticks of lollipops.”
Imagery
Repeating words for a particular effect
Repetition
Word play in which words with totally different meanings have similar or identical sounds
Pun
When the speaker of a poem directly addresses an inanimate object as if they were speaking to it
Apostrophe
I've never been in the military, but I have this Purple Heart
I got it from beating myself up over things I can't fix
Pun
“Wishes are thorns, he told himself sharply. They do us no good, just stick into our skin and hurt us.”
Metaphor