Techniques Poets Use to Create

Meaning

Technique Definition Example

Refrains A group of words

repeated at key intervals in poetry

There's always gonna be another mountainI'm always gonna wanna make it moveAlways gonna be an uphill battleSometimes I'm gonna have to loseAin't about how fast I get thereAin't about what's waitin' on the other sideIt's the climb

The Climb Miley Cyrus

Personification

Figurative Language in which non-human things or abstractions are given

human qualities

The Stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky.

The run down house appeared depressed.

Summer Grass Summer grass aches and whispersIt wants something: it calls and sings; it poursout wishes to the overhead stars.The rain hears; the rain answers; the rain is slowcoming; the rain wets the face of the grass.

HyperboleAn over exaggerated

figure of speech used for emphasis or effect

When she smiles her cheeks fall off.

I'm so hungry I could eat a goose with its beak!

My DogLittle girl is my dog.She sleeps like a log.She has a huge mouth,And eats like a hog.In her excitementHer tail is a whip times ten.When she sees foodHer eyes start to spin.

Alliteration The repetition of the same sounds at the beginning of words

"You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife."

Pretty Polly picked pears for preserves.

Caring Cats Caring cats cascade off

Laughing llamas Lounging.

Underneath yelling yaks,Yelling at roaming

Rats.

OnomatopoeiaThe use of words that sound like what they

mean

30 seconds 'til the game is over.

Tick tock.Tick tock.

Splat !Splat !Goes the sauce on the dough.

Ah It’s School Time!Click clack the shoes move aroundtick tick the clock strikes eightha-chew hiccup everyone feels different chit, chat talking as for the bell we wait. Ring, ring it finally happensScatter swoosh no one wants to be latescreech, yelp it is like a mad housewhen we go into school at eight

SimileA comparison of two

things that are essentially different,

usually using the words like or as

Playing the piano is likeA bird soaring in theSky.

My mind is as brave as a warriorof the night.

BerkleyBlack as midnight, Bad as the devil With eyes like pieces of dark chocolate, He thinks he’s king of the world, My dog Berkley.He’s very much like a pig With his pudgy stomach and all. Like a leech, he’s always attached To his next meal.

Even though he’s as bad as the devil, Berkley is my best fellow.

MetaphorA comparison of two

things that are essentially different, not

using like or as

Brian was a wall, bouncing every tennis ball back over the net.

Cindy was such a mule. We couldn’t get her to change her mind

I am a River

I am a river that finds its wayI am a candle that beams a sayI am a flower that opens wideI am a bee that works the ride.

I am a caterpillar in a cocoonI am a butterfly emerging soonI am a pond that looks withinI am a man of top spin.

IdiomsAn expression that has a different meaning from

the literal meaning of its individual words

Our boss will stop working and help someone at the drop of a hat.

The little boy was running through the park in his birthday suit.

Cat Got Your TongueI was feeling shy when my uncle came."Has the cat got your tongue?" he said.He must have meant, "Why aren't you talking?"Because my tongue was still in my head.

Metaphor Hyperbole

Idioms Alliteration

Simile Personification

Onomatopoeia Refrains