What is alliteration?

Sounds are all around us. We are constantly hearing them and so they have made their way into our language. There are many words for sounds. Words that recreate the sounds.

Ring, ding, screech, clunk, whoosh.

These words are onomatopoeic. The word you write down is an instruction for how to make the sound.

Choo choo!

I was caught up in the muttering crowd.I huffed and puffed to the train.The doors clunked open and beat closed.The engines boomed and the train whooshed off.

The words help bring the poem to life. They help me put the reader of the poem onto the train in their imagination.

I love train journeys. I like to look out the window at the fields and changing landscape. I like to look out for farm animals like sheep. I like the word 'sheep'. I like the double 'ee' - the vowel sounds. It reminds me of other words that have similar sounds inside them. Words that it shares an assonance with. Words like unique, sleek and weep. Assonance is a bit like rhyme. But instead of having words that sound the same at the end, we have words with middles that sound the same.

There are other poetic devices that do not flow quite as easily. I love the challenge of a tongue twister. Many tongue twisters use alliteration where you have lots of words that start with the same letter.

Rabbits.Rare red rabbits.Rare red rabbits revel by the railway.Rare red rabbits revel with rage by the roasting railway.

An easy way to create a tongue twister is by starting with your name and adding words start with the same letter. You can even do it as a challenge taking it in turns to see who can come up with the longest alliterative line.

Joe.Jumping Joe.Jovial jumping Joe.Jovial jumping Joe juggles jam.Jovial jumping Joe juggles jam and juniper berries.Juggling Joe… argh, you win Joe!

Alliteration can be a double challenge. It can be a challenge to find words that start with the same letter, but it can be another challenge to actually say the poems you have created.

The tunnelling train tears through the tricky terrain.

Alliterative poems can be great fun, but they can also be used to create a sense of foreboding, of danger, as the poem continues on on a path of no return.

The train trudged with terrifying terror towards the terrible tunnel.

When you're playing with alliteration, remember that the poem doesn't have to be full of it. You can choose just a few alliterative phrases to add to the mood or atmosphere of the poem.

I remember my tiny toy train.I'd totter it along the toy tracksLaid out in my bedroom in a perfect figure of eightMaking the clunking chunking noisesImagining the clouds of hot and steamStreaming from my tiny boys' toy.Perfect joy.

When you start playing with words, you can start having fun with different poetic devices like onomatopoeia: clunking,chunking. Or assonance where the middle of the word sounds the same: boy, joy, toy. And that is redrafting; that is editing and it's fun because you are like a poetry scientist pouring in some assonance, mixing in some onomatopoeia and standing back to look at the awesome poems you have created.