1. Poetic Devices A glossary of terms

2. Alliteration The repetition of an initial sound – The moon was a ghostly galleon

3. Assonance The repetition of the stressed vowel in succeeding words, but not of the consonants – Awake/fate – Road/chrome

4. Couplet A two line stanza with end rhyme; lines are usually the same length

5. Imagery The use of language to appeal to the reader’s senses – Her musket shattered the moonlight

6. Internal Rhyme Rhyme occurring within a single line – …thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors…

7. Metaphor An indirect comparison of two things – The road was a ribbon of moonlight

8. Simile A direct comparison of two things that are alike, usually with the words “like” or “as” – I wandered lonely as a cloud

9. Onomatopoeia Imitative harmony The effect when words are made to sound like the thing they mean – The “buzz” of flies

10. Personification A figure of speech that imagines animals, things, or abstract ideas as persons or having human qualities – Daffodils tossing their heads in sprightly dance

11. Quatrain A stanza of four lines Usually rhyming a,b,a,b or a,b,b,a (here’s one that’s a,b,c,b) – Roses are red – Violets are blue – This is a bad poem – But what can you do

12. Hyperbole A deliberate exaggeration not intended to deceive, but to create emphasis or humour “ He was dying to meet her”

13. Pun A play on words which have similar sounds “Kill-a-watt suppliers: we save you watts and watts!” Two peanuts were walking in a tough neighbourhood and one of them was a- salted. Pencils could be made with erasers at both ends, but what would be the point?

14. Apostrophe When inanimate objects are addressed as if they were present and alive “Death be not proud!”

15. Symbol/Symbolism An object, action, person or name that stands for something in addition to itself

16. Allusion Figure of speech that makes reference to a historical, popular, or literary event, figure or object Effectiveness depends on the body of knowledge shared by the writer and reader – She has 3 cats, a dog and a bunch of birds. It looks like the ark in there. – He’s quite a Romeo.