Poetic Devices & Figures of Speech
A POET IS LIMITED in the materials he can use in creating his works: all he has are words to express his ideas and feelings. These words need to be precisely right on several levels at once: • they must sound right to the listener even as they delight his ear • they must have a meaning which might have been unanticipated, but seems to be the perfectly right one • they must be arranged in a relationship and placed on the page in ways that are at once easy to follow and assist the reader in understanding • they must probe the depths of human thought, emotion, and empathy, while appearing simple, self-contained, and unpretentious Fortunately, the Eng...