Poetic Devices
Poetic devices are the salt and pepper of poetry (that’s a metaphor, folks). They spice up the language. In fact, they bring out aspects of language that are usually ignored, such as the sounds of words and the connection of two disparate words by sound rather than by meaning.
The question becomes, do you sprinkle these in your poetry, or what? In my experience, you draft and then you see what opportunities appear in your draft. In other words, you might see the beginnings of some alliteration and you can add to it in order to emphasize it.
Here are some poetic devices you might discover in your poems:
Onomatopoeia—words that sound like the meaning they have, such as “buzz,” “thump,” and “hiss.”
Alliteration—words that begin with the same sound, such as, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
Consonance—words that have the same consonant sounds in them (regardless of where they are in the word). “Peter dipped a dipper and put it to his lips.” Hear all the “p” sounds?
Assonance—like consonance, only with vowels.
Rhyme—the end sounds are similar. There are actually several types of rhymes. Perfect rhymes are those in which all syllables of a word are rhymed by another word: banish Spanish. Near rhymes are imperfect: smoke/block, bark/stork, etc. Emily Dickenson used a lot of near rhyme in her work. Eye rhymes are words that look like they ought to rhyme, but they don’t. Through/though/enough. End rhyme—the lines of poetry rhyme at the end. Internal rhyme—there is rhyme in the poem but it does not occur at the end of the lines.
Meter—the meter has to do with both the pattern of stress across the syllables of a line and the number of stresses in a line. A metrical pattern is given a two word name, such as iambic pentameter or trochaic tetrameter. The word ending in “meter” tells you (in Greek, no less) how many stresses are in a given line. Dimeter is two, trimeter is three, tetrameter is four, pentameter is five, and hexameter is six. The other word has to do with the pattern of stresses. Patterns come in groups of two and groups of three. Iambs consist of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Please note that these are syllables, not words. The syllables could each be a word, such as a phrase, “I could” where the stress could naturally fall on “could.” The syllables could be a whole word, such as “about,” where the stress falls on the second syllable. They could be the last syllable of one word and the first syllable of another word, such as, “gentle, harvest” where the iamb falls on “tle, har.” Trochees are a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, the opposite of an iamb. Anapests are groups of three syllables, with the stress on the last. Dactyls are also three syllables with the stress on the first. Generally poetic forms use a single meter. Sonnets are written in iambs (but with poetic license, one usually adds trochees to break up the singsong effect of iambs). Limericks are written in anapests. If you get interested in this, get a poetry book and start “scanning” the poems for their meter. You can learn a lot this way.
Poetic forms for you to try.
Blank verse—unrhymed iambic pentameter. duDAH duDAH duDAH duDAH duDAH. Shakespeare wrote his plays in this form. The 20th century poet, Robert Frost also used blank verse. As a language, English lends itself well to iambic writing.
Free verse—this is poetry in which there is no set pattern of rhyme or meter, although there may be sections of the poem in which rhyme and meter appear. Generally free verse poems are written with the minimum number of words to get the point across—no flowery extras to fill out a rhyme or meter scheme. They are highly crafted in order to balance meaning and the beauty of the language.
Couplets—these are two lines that rhyme. Generally if you are working on rhyme, you may also want to make sure you are consistent about how many stresses are in your lines.
Ballad form—abcb rhyme scheme (2nd and 4th lines rhyme but 1st and 3rd don’t). Stress pattern is 4-3-4-3. First line has 4 stresses, 2nd line has 3, 3rd line has 4 and 4th line has 3. Emily Dickenson often used this as a poetic form. Ballads are also poems/songs that tell stories and as such, they often have many verses (in order to tell the whole story).
Sonnet form—ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme. Iambic pentameter. There is usually a subject shift from the first 8 lines to the last 6 lines—some kind of contrast such as specific to general.
Sestina—an unrhymed poetic form. Choose six words about a subject. You had better like these words because they will appear a lot. They are the end words of your lines. Stanza one goes like this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Then stanza two has the same end words, only they go: 6, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3. Stanza three goes: 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5. You’re still not done. There is a three line stanza that has the end words, 5, 3, 1, but you have to bury 2, 4, 6 in the middle of their respective lines. Believe it or not, this type of poem can be written.
Limerick—a funny poem of five lines. Lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme and they are anapestic trimeter (3 stresses). Lines 3 and 4 are dimeter and they rhyme.
There are many, many other possible poetic forms. Look in poetry books for examples and when you find one you like, try writing in the same form.