This document defines and provides examples of common poetic devices including alliteration, assonance, consonance, imagery, internal rhyme, rhyme, rhyme scheme, stanza, and symbol. Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds, assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds, and consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds within words. Imagery uses language to evoke sensory images. Internal rhyme occurs within lines, rhyme occurs at the end of lines, and rhyme scheme is a pattern of end rhymes. A stanza is a group of poetic lines, and a symbol represents an idea beyond its literal meaning.

1. Common
Poetic Devices

2. Alliteration
repetition of the
initial consonant
sounds

3. terrible truths
and lullaby
lies

4. Assonance
repetition of vowel
sound

5. mystery
disguised
within

6. Consonance
repetition of
consonant sounds,
but not vowel
sounds

7. gloomy
woman

8. Imagery
language that
evokes sensory
images

9. drip of ruby
teardrops
(sound)

10. to wake up
where the green
grass grows
(visual/sight)

11. lips like cool
sweet tea
(oral/taste)

12. streaming
through a
velvet sky
(tactile/touch)

13. the stench of
the underworld
(smell)

14. Internal Rhyme
rhyming that
occurs within the
line (rather at the
end)

15. piece of me
emerges

16. Rhyme
a pattern of words
that contains
similar sounds at
the end of the line

17. Life for me
is wild and
free.

18. Rhyme Scheme
a repeated
pattern of rhymed
words at the end
of the line

19. lusty eyes (A)
passionate cries (A)
rich blood. (B)
bitter sweat (C)
he loves (D)
and dies (A)

20. Stanza
a group of
poetic lines
(also called
verse)

21. Like glistening sun and
moon like day and
gloomy night like pure
earth and gentle
clouds transformation
– life and death

22. Symbol
an object or
action that
means more than
its literal meaning

23. Always open
like a rosebud
( a young girl)