Poetic Devices
Repetition of connected words beginning with the same letter. Used to highlight the feeling of sound and movement, to intensify feeling or to bind words together.
Alliteration
The words that the poet has specifically chosen to create a particular effect, meaning or atmosphere.
Diction
The pace or beat of the poem - can vary enormously from line to line in order to achieve a particular effect. Again, reading the poem out loud can help you spot it and its effects.
Rhythm
This poem's contents is completely up to the poet.
Free Verse
a series of lines grouped together and separated by an empty line from other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a paragraph in an essay.
Stanza
A line ending in which the syntax, rhythm and thought are continued into the next line.
Enjabment
Use of words which echo their meaning in sound e.g. “Snap”, “bang” etc.
Onomatopoeia
This poetic form tells the story of an event in the form of a poem. There is a strong sense of narration, characters, and plot.
Narrative
a lengthy narrative poem in grand language celebrating the adventures and accomplishments of a legendary hero.
Epic
Repeating word or phrases throughout a literary work.
Repetition
comparative description based on similarity between two things, but one that directly connects them e.g. That child is a perfect monkey.
Metaphor
A stanza that has seven lines
Septet
This poem is usually about love. Shakespeare has written 150+ of them.
Sonnet
Repeated ‘S’ sounds at the beginning and in the middle of words.
Sibilance
Use of word pictures, figures of speech and description to evoke ideas, feelings, objects, actions, states of mind, etc.
Imagery
Octave
These poems are very short and are of Asian origin
Haiku
A stanza that is 4 lines long
Quatrain
Repetition of similar or identical vowel sounds in words which follow each other.
Assonance
Technique of presenting things which are not human as if they are.
Personification
This helps control the rhythm of the poem, and it's NOT punctuation
Enjambment
AABBA is the rhyme scheme of this poetic form
Limerick
The pattern of the rhymes in each stanza
Rhyme scheme