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Literary Devices in Poetry: Poetic Devices List

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Literary Devices in Poetry: Poetic Devices List

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1. Anaphora
Anaphora describes a poem that repeats the same phrase at the beginning of each line.

2. Conceit
A conceit must run through the entire poem as the poem’s central device.

3. Apostrophe
Apostrophe is often employed in admiration or longing, as we often talk about things far away in wistfulness or praise. Still, try using apostrophe to express other emotions: express joy, grief, fear, anger, despair, jealousy, or ecstasy, as this poetic device can prove very powerful for poetry writers.

4. Metonymy and synecdoche
Metonymy and synecdoche are very similar poetic devices, so we’ll include them as one item. A metonymy is when the writer replaces “a part for a part,” choosing one noun to describe a different noun. For example, in the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword,” the pen is a metonymy for writing and the sword is a metonymy for fighting. Synecdoche: a part for a whole.

5. Enjambment & End-Stopped Lines
Poets have something at their disposal which prose writers don’t: the mighty line break. Line breaks and stanza breaks help guide the reader through the poem, and while these might not be hardline “literary devices in poetry,” they’re important to
understanding the strategies of poetry writing.

6. Zeugma
A zeugma occurs when one verb is used to mean two different things for two different objects. For example, I might say “He ate some pasta, and my heart out.” To eat pasta and eat someone’s heart out are two very different definitions for ate: one consumption is physical, the other is conceptual. The key here is to only use “ate” once in the sentence, as a zeugma should surprise the reader.

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Speaker: Understanding the Speaker is an essential component of poetry analysis:
1. Who is the speaker? Is it a male or female? An object? An historical figure?
2. To whom or what is he/she speaking? About what? Someone else? About the past, present or future?
3. What is the speaker’s tone? What is the speaker’s mood? Is the poet reflective? Happy? Angry?
Structure: Examine the way the poem looks and is presented on the page:
1. How is the poem set up? Is it separated in to stanzas? Does it follow the pattern of one of the closed forms, such as sonnet, limerick, or haiku?
2. Is the poem in free verse? How are the lines set up? Is there one word per line or is it one long sentence?
3. How does the structure of the poem contribute to meaning?
Meaning: Read the poem for meaning.
1. As you’re reading, note any words that you do not know. After you’ve finished reading, look these words up. Poets choose each word on purpose, not only for its sound, but for the nuance or multiplicity of meaning.
2. After you’ve looked up unfamiliar words, read the poem again as a whole. Try to determine the main idea of the poem - feel free to paraphrase in your own words.
3. Treat the poem as a puzzle: Figure out the meaning of the first line in the first stanza, then the meaning of the second and so on. At the end of the stanza, figure out how the lines work together to create meaning. Then put the summaries for each stanza together to determine the meaning of the poem as a whole.
Imagery: Not only do the words in a poem create a physical image on the page, but in their meaning and connection, they convey images to the reader.
1. The easiest images to pick out are similes and metaphors.
2. Look for words that reflect the five senses, phrases that create a picture, sound, taste, feeling or smell in your mind? Are words used such as buzz or cuckoo (onomatopoeia) which imitate what they name?
3. Look for the repetition of colors, sounds, images, or specific sensory words. Repetition of certain words creates meaning and puts importance on those words that are repeated.
Rhythm, Meter and Rhyme Scheme: Read the poem out loud.
1. Rhythm is the recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds, which can sound melodic or discordant, fast or slow, etc. Rhythm’s what gives some poems their “sing-song” quality.
2. Meter is a recurring pattern of rhythm.
3. The rhyme scheme of a poem describes the pattern of end rhymes. Rhyme schemes are mapped out by noting patterns of rhyme with small letters: the first rhyme sound is designated a, the second b, the third c, and so on.

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Poetry has many of the same elements as fiction: theme, narrator, characters, and setting, although it concentrates its elements in fewer words. Poets choose the words that they use very carefully, delighting in using figurative language, and vocabulary that has more than one meaning.

Before focusing on specific poetic elements, here are a few steps to help acquaint you with the poem:
1. Look at the poem – are there anything striking about the way it is set up? Do the lines have a pattern?
2. Read the poem out loud – take note of the way it sounds. Does it have a certain rhythm to it?
3. After reading the poem and obtaining a general idea of what it is about, look at the title. How does the title relate to the poem? Next, analyze the five different components of the poem, the speaker, the structure, the meaning, the imagery and the rhythm, meter and rhyme scheme.