Poetry is a powerful way of expressing feelings and ideas. Poets use a variety of devices to convey these feelings and ideas.

Poetic devices are tricks poets use to make a poem more powerful, and, ultimately, to make it a poem. Without these devices, poetry is prose.

The point of identifying poetic devices is to determine how they add to or what they tell you about the meaning of the poem.

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Link to the definitions of the terms and see an example of poetry that includes the poet's use of that poetic device.