Poetic Techniques

What technique?

The repetition of a letter sound at the beginning of two (or more) words.

e.g. Deep into the depths of darkness I descended…

• assonance

• alliteration

• simile

What technique?

A comparison of one thing to another:

e.g. This assignment is a breeze.

His words were daggers to my heart.

• free verse

• metaphor

• onomatopoeia

What technique?

A repetition of 's' sounds in two (or more) words.

e.g. Sing a song of sixpence.

Conspiring cells of summer shells.

• sibilance

• allusion

• rhyme

What technique?

When a line of a poem moves to another line without punctuation in between.

e.g. Before the sunrise

a chain of red clouds rise

and all else is in the darkness.

• symbolism

• metaphor

• enjambment

What technique?

When a comparison is made between two things using 'like' or 'as':

e.g. It was as cold as a snowy winter’s eve.

She ran, like a bullet from a gun, towards the finish line.

• juxtaposition

• rhythm

• simile

What technique?

A poem that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and does not have a regular rhyme scheme.

e.g. Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall,

she walks

by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,

dying.

• rhyme

• free verse

• alliteration

What technique?

When two or more words close to one another repeat the same vowel sound:

e.g. Go and mow the lawn.

The engineer held the steering to steer the vehicle.

• assonance

• sibilance

• personification

What technique?

When something non-human (e.g. an object, an animal, a concept) is given human characteristics:

e.g. The fire swallowed the entire forest.

Time had crushed me in the palm of his hand.

• imagery

• personification

• simile

What technique?

A repetition of similar sounding words, occurring at the end of lines in poems or songs:

e.g. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the King’s horses, And all the King’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again!”

• rich rhyme

• iambic pentameter

• anaphora

What technique?

A word that sounds like the sound it makes:

e.g. He heard the clack on stone against stone and the clicks of a small rocks falling.

• alliteration

• simile

• onomatopoeia