Poetic devices 14: Personification

Personification is a common device used in poetry and other forms of literature. This is where writers ascribe a human characteristic to non-human objects or animals. Personification also occurs when writers represent an abstract quality in human form. It's the literary version of anthropomorphism.

Personification a great device to add richer description to your writing, and it helps readers to understand the scene a little better. Here's an example from a poem by Emily Dickinson:

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

In this instance, the poet personifies an abstract concept - Death - and gives it some human characteristics. Personification allows you to ascribe human emotions to things or concepts like this, and this can add great depth to your poetry. You might first instance write:

The rain wept in sorrow

Eh? The rain of course possesses no emotions, so how could it be sorrowful? It has no tear ducts, so how could it weep? You sound a bit crazy writing this Steve! Thanks for your unsolicited opinion. I may be, but personification gives the rain these attributes to add a creative depth. Here's another example:

Tom could hear the last slice of cake calling his name

What? Cake can't speak, so Tom certainly couldn't hear the cake actually calling him! But what the line does, is show, through the personification of the inanimate slice of cake, that Tom had a great desire to grab that last piece of cake before anyone else got there. Greedy Tom. I'll speak to his mother later. 

Have a think and see where you might be able to inject a little personification into your own writing. It can definitely enrich the descriptive power of your poetry and give it a human face. 

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

1. Simile
2. Metaphor
3. Repetition and refrains
4. Alliteration
5. Assonance
6. End Rhymes
7. Internal Rhymes
8. Rhythm and Tempo
9. Enjambment

10. Allegory

11. Metonymy

12. Cacophony

13. Calligram

Main image source: World Atlas

Line evolution

Often I'm asked how I write my poetry. The source of my inspiration is an easy one to answer. How I construct my lines and infuse my poetry with tempo is a harder question to answer. I sometimes have to stop and think about that one, because writing poetry is like riding a bicycle or swimming. Once you've developed your skills, you don't really have to think about them too much - they become competencies that are fairly unconscious. 

But, just for the sake of analysis, here is a response about how I develop a line (or in most cases a phrase or an idea) into a stanza with a pleasing tempo. NB: Because I edit a lot, I use either a laptop, or more likely my smartphone to compose my poetry. It provides the provisionality that I need to do this.

Let's start with a simple line...

A river flows toward the sea

It's fairly bland, yeah? It's something you might say in a conversation. Let's add some adjectives to it. And let's change the definite article from 'A' to 'The'.

The silver river flows toward the stormy sea

Now it's a little more poetic. Let's evolve it further by enriching the adjectives and adding some personification...

The argent river flows toward
the mouth of a contentious sea

OK. Now it's transformed into two lines.  Argent means silver. 'Contentious' is not something people would normally use as an adjective to describe the sea, but it conjures up some imagery for me, so I will use it! I can add more description, further adjectives, maybe enrich the nouns.... and also include a metaphor!

The argent river dances its relentless flow
to kiss the angry maw of a contentious sea

Now it's a little close to becoming a little pretentious, but let's pursue this for the sake of poetry! At this point I can decide whether I want to add some more lines with or without a rhyme scheme... I'm changing the tense from present to past at this point too for effect. 

The argent river danced its cold relentless flow

to kiss the angry maw of a contentious sea

I sat on the river bank and watched...

I need to complete this poem now, splitting up the lines to improve the flow to 6 syllables for each line. The technical term for this is 'accentual syllabic iambic trimeter'. Fancy name,  but it doesn't matter what it's called as long as the poem sounds good and flows well. I'll add another metaphor, enrich it with an adjective and extend the clause with a simile to finish.

The argent river danced 
its cold relentless flow 
to kiss the angry maw
of a contentious sea 
I sat alone upon 
the jealous verdant banks
and watched the silent flow
mute as the fallow swan 

And there it is. A few minutes of writing and thinking and I have an Octave which has some narrative, some assonance and casual rhyming, and plenty of flow (pun intended). I hope that helps, but I write in a different style to you and it may not resonate with you. This post is just to offer some insight into my own writing process.  Each of us can develop their own process for writing poetry.

Steve Wheeler

Image from Wikimedia Commons