Sound Devices in Poetry

1. Sound Devices in Poetry

2. Alliteration The repetition of sounds, most often consonant sounds, at the beginnings of words. Alliteration, gives emphasis to words. Note the two examples of alliteration in the following lines of Mary Oliver�s �The Black Snake.� It is what sent the snake coiling and flowing forward.

3. Assonance The repetition of similar vowel sounds within non-rhyming words especially in a line of poetry. The following stanza from Joan Fallert�s poem �Wanderer� contains assonance in the repetition of the long i sound. Flying south, south to feed and nest, ride the thermals mile after mile after guileless mile without resting.

4. Consonance The repetition of consonant sounds before or after different vowel sounds, as in the line from �I Am Offering This Poem� by Jimmy Santiago Baca. Like a pair of thick socks.

5. End Rhyme and Internal Rhyme End Rhyme occurs at the end of lines. Internal Rhyme occurs within a line. Slant Rhyme occurs when words include sounds that are similar but not identical. It usually involves some form of assonance or consonance.

6. Repetition A literary device in which sounds, words, phrases, lines or stanzas are repeated for emphasis in a poem or literary work. The use of repetition may lend a sense of unity and continuity to the writing.

7. Onomatopoeia The use of a word or phrase that imitates or suggests the sound of what it describes. The rusty spigot sputters, utters a sputter, spatters a smattering of drops, gashes wider; slash, splatters, scatters, spurts, finally stops sputtering and plash! Gushes, rushes, splashes, clear water dashes.

8. Meter A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that gives a line of poetry a predictable rhythm. The basic unit of meter is a foot.