If you know a poem that has five of the six following poetic devices listed below, please email me as soon as possible.

Poetic Devices
Metaphor
Similie
Personification
Onomatopoeia
Alliteration
Imagery

[www.english.uiuc.edu]

Jim, you may find the tems and examples here:

[www.poetsgraves.co.uk]


Les

Jim, do you mean only five or at least five?

Here's one in which you can easily find metaphor, simile, alliteration and imagery. It's arguable that it also just sneaks in with examples of onomatpoeia and personification. Other poems may contain better examples of course.

'The War Song of the Saracens'
from the play ‘Hassan’ by James Elroy Flecker

We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late:
We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the sunset beware!
Not on silk nor on samet we lie, nor in curtained solemnity die
Among women who chatter and cry and children who mumble a prayer.
But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout and we tramp
With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in our hair.

From the lands where the elephant are to the forts of Merou and Balghar,
Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rum.
We have marched from the Indies to Spain, and by God we will go there again;
We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny boom.
A mart of destruction we made at Yalula where men were afraid,
For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom;

And the Spear was a Desert Physician, who cured not a few of ambition,
And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong.
And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool,
And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when our cavalry thundered along:
For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered up like a wave,
And our dead to the desert we gave, and the glory to God in our song.



Post Edited (01-19-05 07:04)

Which, in turn, reminds me of this one:


The War-Song Of Dinas Vawr

The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a host, and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.

On Dyfed’s richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
We met them, and o’erthrew them:
They struggled hard to beat us;
But we conquered them, and slew them.

As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.

We there, in strife bewild’ring,
Spilt blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen;
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen.

We brought away from battle,
And much their land bemoaned them,
Two thousand head of cattle,
And the head of him who owned them:
Ednyfed, king of Dyfed,
His head was borne before us;
His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.
-- THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK


Not to say it has anything to do with the original question, no. Still, the first four lines never fail to give me a chuckle.

Are you still looking for a poem?

I'm sure there are a gazillion---but---
check out Jack Myer's poem "The Stripper."

Ah, but how?

well I can't find "The Stripper" online---I did try---it's
in his book One On One. BUt I may have it to cut and paste
from an old paper. Hang on, I'll check. It certainly uses metaphor, simile, alliteration, and imagery. Not sure about personification---
I have to re-read the poem. And probably not onomatopoeia.

THE STRIPPER by Jack Myers

Like fish surfacing from the long limousine
of streaming underwater currents, late afternoon
she appears at the pool mysteriously, flashing
the free-spending sun off men who turn helplessly
iridescent before her nakedness.

I have watched her discreetly, all summer long, carefully,
past what I take to be the usual shock and excitement
over closing in so quickly on what takes me so long to imagine.
Then scrupulously, clinically, I wait for what feels like
something minute and impossibly toxic to crystallize between us.

It’ll take five years before her body softens and ripens
into the normalcy of the Kansas stock she comes from,
lying there legs splayed, contemptuous and bored with her
lavishly adored body which I imagine has nightly pumped dry
the grunts of anonymous drunks on the rank mud flats of desire.

She has no idea how tender, attentive, and appreciative
I could be, what an accident of luck it is to have such a body,
which she oils with such unguents so slowly and luxuriously that I feel
luck rise through me all the way up here. Today it feels like we’ve been
married for years, that I’ve ended up bankrupt by her demands on me.
So I’ve become cruel, turning her body over and over in my mind,
coolly grading my stunning lascivious jewel by its imperfections.

Each day after nap time I come down and execute my perilous pass,
the formal, balding older gentlemen from apartment 2B, who exchanges
dismissive looks with her. Today she has no idea I’ve decided to risk
everything I’ve fantasized (then step to her aid at the last minute)
as I march by shadowing her daydream with a complexly fashioned
“Pardon me” on my way to lodge an anonymous complaint with the manager.

*

alliteration---look at Myers' use of "L"s in the first stanza---like, long limousine, late, and later luck and luxuriously---all so sensuous, set the stage for this sort of seduction . . .

then flashing and fee-spending---examine how this gets the poem rolling and affects the tone.

simile---the poem obviously opens with one . . .

personification---if you stretch it----"flashing the free-spending sun" makes the sun somewhat human---look for other examples . . .

metaphor---well the poem is a metaphor in and of itself
as poems are---but more specifically---with "my lascivious jewel," the woman becomes well, a mere piece of jewelry, an object. He gets even with her this way . . .

imagery---lots of that---take your pick

"oils with such ungents" you could argue is kinda onomatopoea (sp?)

Works for me, thanks.

>Poetic Devices (the ones listed are examples thereof)

>Metaphor: my stunning lascivious jewel

>Similie: Like fish surfacing

>Personification: free-spending sun

<Onomatopoeia: oils with ... unguents & pumped ... the grunts

>Alliteration: such unguents so slowly ... perilous pass

>Imagery: men who turn helplessly iridescent, streaming underwater currents, stunning lascivious jewel (and many others)

Also,

Assonance: attentive ... appreciative ... accident
Consonance: oils ... slowly ... luxuriously


Yes, possibly a copyright violation to post it in its entirety without the author's permission, but the argument might successfully be made that it should be allowed because of the use as a teaching aid. And, if the author objects, the site has the capability to delete the thread. As safe as life gets, I would think.