Poetic Devices

Imagery

Figurative language used to create particular mental images.

Simile

A comparison between unlike things using "like", "as", or "as though":
cheeks like roses

Metaphor

An association of two completely different objects as being the same thing.
Bill Gates is drowning in money.
She has a special place in his heart.
A blanket of snow fell through the night.
They are on the road to peace.
My father is a bear.

Meter

Lines made up of five iambs (two-syllable feet) are called iambic pentameters. They contain ten syllables and five stresses.

da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum

Be what you can if thus your heart so deem,
For more the man will less the foible seem.

Rhyme

Repetition of similar (same) vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words.
The opening stanza of Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," with end rhymes of the words, cloud-hills-crowd-daffodils-trees-breeze, is described as having a rhyme scheme of ababcc.

pair rhyme: aabb cross rhyme: abab
eye rhyme: love / move

Oxymoron

A seeming contradiction in two words put together.
cruel kindness; beautiful death; jumbo shrimp; real imitation leather

Tone, Mood

Feelings or meanings expressed (conveyed) in the poem.