Examples of Alliteration Poems

Alliteration is a literary device that repeats a speech sound in a sequence of words that are close to each other. Alliteration typically uses consonants at the beginning of a word to give stress to its syllable. Alliteration plays a very crucial role in poetry and literature:

• It provides a work with musical rhythms.
• Poems that use alliteration are read and recited with more interest and appeal.
• Poems with alliteration can be easier to memorize.
• Alliteration lends structure, flow, and beauty to any piece of writing.

Today, alliteration is often used to make slogans more memorable or to make children’s stories more fun to read out loud.

To further understand the meaning it often helps to take a look at examples of alliteration in poems.

Alliteration in Poems

There are numerous examples of alliteration in poems. For example:

Poe

Here are examples of alliteration taken from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe:

• Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary
• ...rare and radiant maiden

• And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

• Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before

In this Poe poem, weak and weary; rare and radiant; silken and sad; deep and darkness; and wondering and fearing are all examples of alliteration.

Other Literary Examples

• Hot-hearted Beowulf was bent upon battle - from Beowulf. This example of Medieval Anglo-Saxon poetry contains alliteration using Beowulf, bent and battle.
• Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved His vastness - from Paradise Lost by John Milton. This example also contains alliteration with Behemoth and biggest born.
• Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields - from Sir Galahad by Alfred Tennyson. The example contains alliteration with fly, fens and fields.
• Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table - from The Death of the Hired Man by Robert Frost. Here, the alliteration is Mary and musing.
• For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky - from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Sky and sea are alliterative devices here.

Alliteration in Nursery Rhymes

Mother Goose poems contain a great deal of alliteration. For example:

Betty Botter by Mother Goose

Betty Botter bought some butter, but, she said, the butter’s bitter; if I put it in my batter it will make my batter bitter, but a bit of better butter will make my batter better.

So she bought a bit of butter better than her bitter butter, and she put it in her batter and the batter was not bitter. So ’twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.

Three Grey Geese by Mother Goose

Three grey geese in a green field grazing, Grey were the geese and green was the grazing.

Baker’s Reply to the Needle Salesman by Unknown

I need not your needles, They’re needless to me, For kneading of needles, Were needless, you see; But did my neat trousers, But need to be kneed, I then should have need of your needles indeed. 

Alliteration in Tongue Twisters

Alliteration also makes tongue twisters even more difficult to say:

• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck If a woodchuck would chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck If a woodchuck would chuck wood.
• Silly Sally swiftly shooed seven silly sheep. The seven silly sheep Silly Sally shooed shilly-shallied south. These sheep shouldn’t sleep in a shack; Sheep should sleep in a shed.

Alliteration in Children's Books

Dr. Suess commonly used alliteration to make his books imminently readable. For example:

Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew. Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze. Freezy trees made these trees’ cheese freeze. That’s what made these three free fleas sneeze.

Alliteration in Advertising

Alliteration has also become a common tool in advertising. Check out these two examples:

• “You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife." (advertising slogan for Country Life butter)
• "The daily diary of the American dream." (a slogan of The Wall Street Journal)

Alliteration Then and Now

The application of alliteration in poetry and literature began ages ago, at the time when literature was born. It was widely applied in the 8th century poem entitled Beowulf for instance. Alliteration was widely celebrated in the writings of the most ancient Germanic and Norse works, including the prose, Edda.

Alliteration is a creative tool used in turning prose and poetry into more interesting and memorable pieces of literature, especially when recited. This device is now even commonly used by advertisers to create witty and memorable catchphrases and tag lines. It’s a fun play of words that brings out the imagination of the writer and the reader.