Poetic Techniques

Poetic Techniques Poetic techniques are used to communicate a thought, feeling, point of view or idea and encourage the reader to engage and understand these things. Poetic techniques can communicate a lot of meaning while only saying a small amount. Poetry causes us to reflect and think about all aspects about all people and life.

Similes Compares on thing to another. Commonly uses words such as ‘like’ or ‘as’. She was as sharp as a tack Her eyes glittered like stars It was as disastrous as World War II The woman was about as smart as a box of erasers. What are the similes above suggesting?

Metaphors Saying something is something else. Her heart is gold. He is a riddle. What are the metaphors implying?

Imagery Imagery is the images that are created by the words used. Imagery is created by using descriptive language. Write two sentences to create the image of a playground at lunchtime. Choose an image of your own and write two descriptive sentences to describe it.

Tone Is the overall mood or atmosphere of the poem. Angry Scared Depressing Happy Content Tone can be created by: careful use of diction (word choice) punctuation ( ! … italics CAPS) and sentence structures (short sentences of long sentence)

Onomatopoeia Sound words! The written form of sound. Bang, pop, crash, crackle etc. How many more can you think of?

Enjambment (en-jam-muh) Broken sentences in a poem Falling Falling I scream I Panic Bring my Hands Out And I race and Race And wake Up Causes us to empathise with an emotion or understand a tone or situation. See the example below. When you read it out loud in causes you to stumble on your own words. It causes us to empathise with the feeling and fright of falling. Write your own poem about falling using enjambment

Personification There are various types of personification Anthropomorphism: giving animals human qualities and emotions Pathetic Fallacy: giving the weather human emotions and qualities Personification: giving inanimate objects human emotions and qualities Write an example of each.

Rhetorical Question Asking a question that does not need an answer. It can be used to cause the reader to think about a certain aspect of the poet’s topic that you may not have considered before.

Diction Choice of words. For example I am going to my house I am going home What is the difference in words? How does it change the meaning of the sentence?

Punctuation Punctuation can create all different types of tones and impacts on the reader. What impact could each of the following punctuation types have? ! … Italics CAPITALS .

Symbolism An object, character, colour or animal that represents a greater idea or concept. What do you think the images below could symbolise?

Repetition The repeating of a word or phrase next to each other. Example No change. I can change I can change I can change. (Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve) What is the effect of this repetition?

Refrain The repetition of a line throughout the poem. Used to bring the audiences attention back to the issue or thought or exaggerate the importance of it.

Alliteration A string of sentences starting with the same letter. It is a sound device which is used to create sounds that may be there or to cause you to speak in a certain way. It may cause you to focus particularly of the words as it might be an important concept in the poem.

Contrast Two contrasting images which can emphasise a point. Contrast is also knows as juxtaposition. For example, a stanza in a poem might start with the imagery of a bright and sunny day; the next image might describe a dark and gloomy evening. This could emphasise a dark feeling in contrast to the first stanza and show the degree of the emotional fall of the author.