a brief intro of poetry types and poetic devices

1. POETRY
• Putting words
• On paper to
• Express in parts
• Thoughts from me
• Right to
• Your heart

2. Poets on Poetry
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility.”
William Wordsworth
“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best
minds.”
Percy Bysshe Shelle
“Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.”
Robert Frost

3. Kinds of poetry
• Ballad
• Lyrical
• Epic
• Sonnet
• Narrative
• Elegy
• Eulogy
• Epithet
• Odd
• Satire
• Dramatic
monologue
• Allegory
• Free/ Blank verse

4. Free Verse
Free verse is a literary device that can be defined as
poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter
or rhythm and does not rhyme with fixed forms.
Such poems are without rhythms and rhyme
schemes; do not follow regular rhyme scheme rules
and still provide artistic expression. In this way, the
poet can give his own shape to a poem how he/she
desires. However, it still allows poets to
use alliteration, rhyme, cadences or rhythms to get
the effects that they consider are suitable for the
piece.

5. Features of Free Verse
• Free verse poems have no regular meter and
rhythm.
• They do not follow a proper rhyme scheme as
such; these poems do not have any set rules.
• This type of poem is based on normal pauses and
natural rhythmical phrases as compared to the
artificial constraints of normal poetry.
• It is also called vers libre which is a French word.

6. Examples of Free Verse
Come slowly, Eden
Lips unused to thee.
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars—alights,
And is lost in balms!
• (Come Slowly, Eden by Emily
Dickinson)
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Fog by Carl Sandburg

7. Figurative Devices in Poetry
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech
that makes a comparison,
showing similarities
between two different
things. Unlike a metaphor, a
simile draws resemblance
with the help of the words
“like” or “as.” Therefore, it
is a direct comparison.
Examples:
“I wandered lonely as a
cloud
that floats on high o’er vales
and hills.”
the Daffodils (By William
Wordsworth)
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water-lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from
famous countries.
Will There Really Be a
Morning? (By Emily Dickinson)

8. Metaphor
Metaphor is a figure of
speech that makes an
implicit, implied, or
hidden comparison between
two things that are
unrelated, but which share
some common
characteristics. In other
words, a resemblance of two
contradictory or different
objects is made based on a
single or some common
characteristics.
Examples:
• Chaos is the breeding
ground of order.
• War is the mother of all
battles.
• His words are pearls of
wisdom.
• Words are daggers when
spoken in anger.
• The skies of his future
began to darken.

9. Alliteration
Alliteration is derived from
Latin’s “Latira”. It means
“letters of alphabet”. It is a
stylistic device in which a
number of words, having
the same first consonant
sound, occur close together
in a series.
Examples:
• But a better butter makes
a batter better.
• A big bully beats a baby
boy.
• From Samuel Taylor
Coleridge’s “The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner”
• “The fair breeze blew, the
white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever
burst
Into that silent sea.”

10. Assonance
• Assonance takes place
when two or more words,
close to one another
repeat the same vowel
sound, but start with
different consonant
sounds.
• Examples:
• “Men sell the wedding
bells.”
• “Those images that yet,
Fresh images beget,
Byzantium, by W. B. Yeats
“He gives his harness bells a
shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the
sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dar and
deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost

11. Personification
Personification is a figure of
speech in which a thing – an
idea or an animal – is given
human attributes. The non-
human objects are portrayed in
such a way that we feel they
have the ability to act like
human beings.
Example:
• The wind whispered
through dry grass.
• The flowers danced in the
gentle breeze.
“Two Sunflowers
Move in the Yellow Room.
‘Ah, William, we’re weary of
weather,’
said the sunflowers, shining with
dew.
Our traveling habits have tired us.
Can you give us a room with a
view?”
Two Sunflowers Move in a Yellow
Room (By William Blake)
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the
breeze.”
Daffodils by William Wordsworth

12. Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is defined as a
word, which imitates the
natural sounds of a thing. It
creates a sound effect that
mimics the thing described,
making the description more
expressive and interesting.
Examples:
• The buzzing bee flew away.
• The sack fell into the river with a
splash.
• The books fell on the table with a
loud thump.
• He looked at the roaring sky.
• The rustling leaves kept me awake.
“The moan of doves in
immemorial elms,
And murmuring of
innumerable bees…”
(‘Come Down, O Maid’ by Alfred Lord
Tennyson)
“Hark, hark!
Bow-wow.
The watch-dogs bark!
Bow-wow.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, ‘cock-a-diddle-dow!'”
• (Ariel in William
Shakespeare’s The Tempest,