Ophelia

1.      The heaviness of death clings to the air like dew on the morning grass

2.      Nonsense melodies cloud her saddened mind

3.      The herb placed to her lips tingles, burns with eagerness

4.      She should not do this; she cannot do this

5.      Her footsteps are a storm as she stumbles through the wood, leaving heartache behind her

6.      A tree is her savior and her solitude from reality

7.      Splintering, cracking like her broken heart, its limb has no strength to save her from her fate

8.      The broken branch lies over the brook

9.      Willows weep softly; their tassels hang mournfully above her

10.  Her limp body floats, like a leaf, on the surface of the water

11.  Mermaid hair swims around her as she glides down the shallow creek

12.  Her heart stills, frozen with the absent warmth of love she wished to receive

13.  Her once-lovely pink lips turn pale, as her breath silently whisks away

14.  Petals float around her, the only color that remains

15.  Ophelia, her body wilted, slowly sinks down into depths from which she won’t return

My first technique was imagery. As you can see, I pretty much use imagery in almost every line; I was once told that poetry was constructed of sound and imagery, so I just went on from there.

Another technique I used was diction. This would be the sound part of my poetry construction, and I used this in lines 4, 8, and 11 especially. Line 4 is a parallel structure, 8 I used alliteration, and in 12 I used words that related to mermaids like “hair”, since it’s an important feature, “swims”, and “glides”. The entire poem could be considered an analogy for death.

I used quite a bit of personification in this poem in lines 1, 8, 9, and 13. I figured using these would make the images seem more alive so the audience would feel like they were actually witnessing Ophelia’s death personally. (You might be able to consider personification in line 15 in regards to her body since she’s dead at this point).

I used similes in lines 1 and 10 to compare the heaviness of death and her dead body to natural things, also making the story more tangible. I also used one in line 7 to compare the breaking tree branch to her already-broken heart.

I used metaphors in lines 5 and 6, labeling her footsteps as a storm, indicating she’s running quickly, loudly, wildly through the forest to the tree, my second metaphor, her savior.

This brings me to my zeugma in line 6, stating that the tree is her savior and her place of solitude and privacy in one.

My final strategy is anaphora, which you can see in lines 5, 10, 12, and 13 in my repetition of the word “Her” at the beginning of each of those lines.

Word count: 485