Naomi Shihab Nye, who wrote the poem you'll read in this lesson, has plenty of experience with emotional and physical survival, and she shares some of those experiences quite openly in her poetry. Use this link (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/naomi-shihab-nye) to learn how the poet's life might have affected her approach to poetry.
A couple of literary devices are central to the success of Nye's poem "Making a Fist." Use the cards below to make sure you are prepared to read and analyze the poem.
Alliteration
The repetition of sounds at the beginnings of words, for poetic effect. The phrase "harder and harder to hear" uses alliteration -- in this case, repetition of the letter "h".
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds, for poetic effect. The phrase "stamped with our unanswerable woes" includes repetition of the short "a" sound (stamped, unanswerable).
Symbolism
The use of a specific, concrete item to represent something more than it means literally. For example, in T.S. Eliot's long poem The Wasteland, the strawmen stand for more than scarecrows--they represent people who have had life and joy drained from them.
Personification
Assigning a non-human thing the qualities or characteristics of a human. Here's an example: The trees grew still before the storm, then danced wildly as the hurricane approached.
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