Poetry Terms and Examples

"Giving human characteristics to animals or objects" is a definition of:

• onomatopoeia
• personification
• simile

"The use of words that sound like what they describe" is a definition of:

• onomatopoeia
• metaphor
• alliteration

Read the following stanza and decide which two poetic devices the author uses.
"I am Super Sampson Simpson,
I'm superlatively strong.
I like to carry elephants,
I do it all day long.
I pick up half a dozen
and hoist them in the air.
It's really somewhat simple,
for I have strength to spare."

• simile, onomatopoeia
• alliteration, hyperbole
• metaphor, personification

Tags

CCSS.L.11-12.5

CCSS.RL.11-12.4

"Comparing two things using 'like' or 'as'" is a definition of:

• personification
• hyperbole
• simile

Read the following line of poetry and decide which two poetic devices the author
uses.
"He was a stainless steel ruler,
tall, straight and always measured in
response."

• onomatopoeia, simile
• alliteration, metaphor
• simile, hyperbole

Tags

CCSS.L.11-12.5

CCSS.L.11-12.5A

CCSS.RL.11-12.4

"Using extreme exaggeration to make a point" is a definition of:

• hyperbole
• onomatopoeia
• simile

"The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words" is a definition of:

• personification
• onomatopoeia
• alliteration

Read the following poem and decide which two poetic devices the author
uses.
"It sushes,
It hushes,
The loudness in the road.
It flitter-twitters,
And laughs away from me.
It laughs a lovely whiteness,
And whitely whirs away
To be some otherwhere.
Still white as milk or shirts,
So beautiful it hurts."

• onomatopoeia, metaphor
• metaphor, hyperbole
• onomatopoeia, simile

Tags

CCSS.L.11-12.5

CCSS.RL.11-12.4

Read the following poem and decide which two poetic devices the author
uses.
"At midnight in the museum hall,
The fossils gathered for a ball.
There were no drums or saxophones,
But just the clatter of their bones.
A rolling, rattling, carefree circus
Of mammoth polkas and mazurkas.
Pterodactyls and brontosauruses
Sang ghostly prehistoric choruses.
Amid the mastodontic wassail,
I caught the eye of one small fossil.
"Cheer up, sad world," he said, and winked--
"It's kind of fun to be extinct."

• personification, onomatopoeia
• simile, metaphor
• metaphor, alliteration

Tags

CCSS.L.11-12.5

CCSS.RL.11-12.4

Read the following poem and decide which two poetic devices the author uses.
"The lighthouse, the guardian angel of
the night,
She shines her light for all the lost sailors passing by.
Her beam bright as the sun,
flashing through the night sky.
The lighthouse, a soldier during the storms, Standing tall,
unafraid of the chaos.
Her light piercing through the storm like sharp knives.

• simile, hyperbole
• hyperbole, personification
• metaphor, simile