1. Figurative Language
Similes, Metaphors, Personification, Alliteration, imagery, tone/mood, direct characterization, Rhyme, Symbolism, and Repetition

2. Figurative Language A writers tool
It helps the reader to visualize (see) what the writer is thinking
It puts a picture in the readers mind
Makes the writing come alive
Adds dramatic effect

3. Simile A simile is used to compare two things
It uses the words “like” or “as” to make comparisons.

4. Similes Twilight: After Haying-Jane Kenyon     Yes, long shadows go out from the bales; and yes, the soul must part from the body: what else could it do? The men sprawl near the baler, too tired to leave the field. They talk and smoke, and the tips of their cigarettes blaze like small roses in the night air. (It arrived and settled among them before they were aware.) The moon comes to count the bales, and the dispossessed-- Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will --sings from the dusty stubble. These things happen. . .the soul's bliss and suffering are bound together like the grasses The last, sweet exhalations of timothy and vetch go out with the song of the bird; the ravaged field grows wet with dew.

5. Metaphor A metaphor is used to compare two things
Instead of saying something is “like” or “as” --- a metaphor states that it just IS.

6. Metaphor Mother To Son-By Langston Hughes
Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor – Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now – For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

7. Metaphor Democracy-by Langston Hughes     Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right As the other fellow has To stand On my two feet And own the land. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread. Freedom Is a strong seed Planted In a great need. I live here, too. I want freedom Just as you.

8. Personification Giving non human objects human like characteristics.
Giving animals human like characteristics.

9. Personification
Sylvia Plath Mirror   I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see, I swallow immediately. Just as it is, un misted by love or dislike I am not cruel, only truthful – The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over.   Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me. Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

10. Alliteration
The repetition of consonant sounds to enhance the rhythm or to create a beat in poetry.

11. Alliteration Insomniac
  There are some nights when sleep plays coy, aloof and disdainful. And all the wiles that I employ to win its service to my side are useless as wounded pride, and much more painful. Maya Angelou

12. Alliteration Touched by an Angel-by Maya Angelou
We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.

13. Repetition
Repeating certain lines, phrases or words to add emphasis to the importance of them and to draw the reader’s attention to them.

14. Repetition Let Evening Come
  Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun moves down. Let the cricket take up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. Let evening come. Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass. Let the stars appear and the moon disclose her silver horn. Let the fox go back to its sandy den. Let the wind die down. Let the shed go black inside. Let evening come. To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop in the oats, to air in the lung let evening come. Let it come, as it will, and don't be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come. Jane Kenyon

15. Symbolism
Symbolism is something you can see that has taken on a meaning beyond what the object actually is.  For instance, when you think of a symbol, think of something that is tangible, something you can hold or touch with your hand.  If it is something you can not touch, eliminate it as a possible symbol

16. The Road Not Taken By robert frost
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler,
long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;         
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,         

17. And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.        
  I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.         

18. Symbolism Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. 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, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

19. Rhyme
Rhyming, whether it is internal, external, etc., creates a beat or rhythm to poetry. The songs you listen to are poetry set to music.

20. External Rhyme A Dream-by Edgar Allen Poe In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?

21. Imagery
Wild Geese  by Mary Oliver You do not have to be good.  You do not have to walk on your knees  for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  You only have to let the soft animal of your body  love what it loves.  Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.  Meanwhile the world goes on.  Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain  are moving across the landscapes,  over the prairies and the deep trees,  the mountains and the rivers.  Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,  are heading home again.  Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,  the world offers itself to your imagination,  calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-- over and over announcing your place  in the family of things.

22. Imagery
By using adjectives, specific details, and vibrant descriptions, the writer can paint a picture with words. The images evoked create an overall mood and draw the reader in.

23. Imagery The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?

24. Tone/Mood
Mood The mood is the feeling or atmosphere of a piece. The mood can be many different things. Some examples included:
A feeling of love.
A feeling of doom.
A feeling of fear.
A feeling of pride.
An atmosphere of chaos.
An atomsphere of peace.
Meaning What is the author trying to communicate.

25. Mood
How to Achieve Mood and Meaning You should be able to establish mood or purpose in poetry by:
choice of words,
summary terms,
symbolic language,
structure of the sentences,
the length of each poetic line,
and the punctuation marks chosen.

26. Gloomy Mood: Winter garden
Stark naked flower stalks Stand shivering in the wind. The cheerless sun hides its black light Behind bleak, angry clouds, While trees vainly try To catch their escaping leaves. Carpets of grass turn brown, Blending morosely with the dreary day. Winter seems the death of life forever. (poetry devices used: alliteration, personificationoxymoron, metaphor, hyperbole)

27. Example of cheerful mood: Spring Garden
Stunningly dressed flower stalks Stand shimmering in the breeze. The cheerful sun hides playfully Behind white, fluffy, cotton-ball clouds, While trees whisper secrets To their rustling leaves. Carpets of grass greenly glow Blending joyfully with the day. Spring brings life to death. (Poetry devices used: alliteration, personification,metaphor, simile)

28. Irony defined
DEFINITION OF IRONY As a figure of speech, irony refers to a difference between the way something appears and what is actually true. Part of what makes poetry interesting is its indirectness, its refusal to state something simply as "the way it is." Irony allows us to say something but to mean something else, whether we are being sarcastic, exaggerating, or understating.

29. My Papa’s Waltz-Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

30. Irony
The first stanza introduces what is a heavily ironic tone that persists throughout the poem. A waltz sounds like a pleasant enough diversion, but the whiskey, the dizziness, and especially the word death collectively undercut this assumption and make us understand that the situation is not entirely lighthearted. - lines

31. 1-2 - "The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy" These lines are ironic because, while it is possible that the smell of “the whiskey” alone would make the child dizzy, being swung roughly (and even drunkenly) about is probably to blame too.
- line 3 - "I hung on like death" This line emphasizes the irony of line 4. Because the speaker’s father presents a certain danger, he “hangs on” to him here not necessarily “like death” but rather for dear life. The word death is thus ironic, but it makes the danger of the situation clear and offsets the notion that this is just a lighthearted waltz.

32. - line 4 - "Such waltzing was not easy" The waltz should be easy, on a literal level, because the speaker is just being swung around by his father. It isn’t easy because, apparently, their lives together aren’t easy.
- lines "We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf" Continuing the tone of the first stanza, the word romped here is ironic because it makes the waltz sound carefree, yet the effect of this romping is to cause a violent, crashing disruption in their domestic world.

33. Rhythm
Rhythm is a musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables. Rhythm occurs in all forms of language, both written and spoken, but is particularly important in poetry
The most obvious kind of rhythm is the regular repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables found in some poetry.
Writers also create rhythm by repeating words and phrases or even by repeating whole lines and sentences