Poetry Toolkit - Using Poetic Devices
Your "Poetry Toolkit" is a list of poetic or literary devices that can be used to enhance your writing.
These devices are an important part of poetic responses due to the way they emphasise important parts of your work to communicate a certain meaning with the reader.
These devices are an important part of poetic responses due to the way they emphasise important parts of your work to communicate a certain meaning with the reader.
Musical Devices
Figurative Devices
Examples of Poetic Responses
First They Came - Martin Niemoller
They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
Communist.
Then They came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
Jews.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak
up.
Above you can watch a contemporary adaption of Niemoller's poem First They Came
Holocaust - Barbara Sonek
We played, we laughed,
we were loved.
We were ripped from the arms of our
parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.
We had a future.
We were going to be
lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers.
We had dreams,
then we had no hope.
We were taken away in the
dead of night like cattle in cars, no air
to breathe smothering, crying, starving,
dying. Separated from the world to be
no more. From the ashes, hear our
pleas. This atrocity to mankind can not
happen again. Remember us, for we
were the children whose dreams and
lives were stolen away.
At Terezin - Written by 'Teddy' 1943
When a new child comes
Everything seems strange to him.
What, on the ground I have to lie?
Eat black potatoes? No! Not I!
I've got to stay? It's dirty here!
The floor - why, look, it's dirt, I fear!
And I'm supposed to sleep on it?
I'll get all dirty!
Here the sound of shouting, cries,
And oh, so many flies.
Everyone knows flies carry disease.
Ooooh, something bit me! Wasn't that a
bedbug?
Here in Terezin, life is hell
and when I'll go home again, I can't yet
tell.