1. Meaning Devices in Poetry

2. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Irony
A contradiction between what is said and what is really meant.
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Water, water everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink
And not a drop to drink.
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

3. Metaphor A direct comparison between two unlike objects
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog:
Cryin' all the time,
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog: Cryin' all the time.
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit And you ain't no friend of mine.
As sung by Elvis Presley

4. Simile A comparison using “like” or “as”
A Red, Red Rose O My Love's like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June; O My Love's like the melody That's sweetly played in tune.
By Robert Burns

5. Allusion
A reference to something well-known from literature, history, mythology, religion, pop culture, etc.
Ring around the rosy
A pocketful of posies
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down
Mother Goose

6. Personification
Treating a non-human object with human characteristics; treating a human with non-human characteristics
The Train
I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains, And, supercilious, peer In shanties by the sides of roads; And then a quarry pare
By William Blake

7. Imagery
The use of vivid language to create ideas or evoke emotion using one or more of the senses.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils:
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
by William Wordsworth

8. Irony
saying one thing but meaning something else

9. Hyperbole Exaggeration used for effect Speed Adjustments
Why does a boy who’s fast as a jet
Take all day – and sometimes two –
To get to school?
by John Ciardi

10. Contrast (Antithesis)
Closely arranging things with strikingly different characteristics
To err is human, to forgive, divine.
Alexander Pope

11. Left and Leaving by The Weakerthans
My city's still breathing (but barely it's true) through buildings gone missing like teeth. The sidewalks are watching me think about you, sparkled with broken glass. I'm back with scars to show. Back with the streets I know Will never take me anywhere but here. The stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand, the strangers whose faces I know. We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say "I wanted it this way" Wait for the year to drown. Spring forward, fall back down. I'm trying not to wonder where you are. All this time lingers, undefined. Someone choose who's left and who's leaving. Memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me: a blanket, some matches, this pain in my chest, the best parts of Lonely, duct-tape and soldered wires, new words for old desires, and every birthday card I threw away. I wait in 4/4 time, Count yellow highway lines that you're relying on will lead you home.