Day 7 ~ How to Write an “Alliteration Poem” for “30 Poems in 30 Days” #NationalPoetryMonth

This is a fun poem to work on. Many children’s nursery rhymes and tongue twisters use alliteration.

Alliteration is the recurring repetition of the same consonant sound found in a sequence of words close to each other. It’s typically found at the beginning of a word. The SOUND, rather than the actual LETTER is important here. ‘Cake’ and ‘cereal’ both start with the letter “C” but there is no alliteration there whereas ‘fantastic’ and ‘phenomenal’ start with different letters BUT share the same beginning sound. You get the idea, right? 

Alliteration can be useful when you are trying to emphasize something or to bring a bit of musicality to your poem. (And quite often, silliness)!! 

It helps to brainstorm up a list of words that have the same beginning sound. Choose a letter to practice your alliterations.  Open a doc, type the letter and then type as many words as you can that start with the letter you chose. This will help you when you start to create your poem.

Basically, it takes 5 steps to come up with a pretty decent alliteration poem:

1    1.  Pick a (consonant) letter.

     2. Brainstorm a bunch of words starting with the same letter or, at least, with the same sound. You will need some NOUNS, VERBS, and ADJECTIVES.

     3. Try making up sentences using those words.
      Ex: I bravely bit into a brown banana!
 4. Add more sentences and see if you can’t pull off a rhyme or two in the process – rhyming works really well in alliteration poems, BUT is not required.  
 5. Now, here’s the trick – try to come up with a REASON for these sentences to fit together into a poem or a tongue twister and then put them together.

   Voilà – you may have just written an alliteration poem. Congratulations.

If you are struggling a bit, here is a link to help you with your brainstorming:

              101examples of alliteration in alphabetical order

Here are some examples found among tongue twisters, clichés and Mother Goose rhymes:

Alliteration in Tongue Twisters

    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.

    Sally sells sea shells down by the seashore.

Typical alliterations found in clichés: sweet smell of success, a dime a dozen

Mother Goose examples:

From Three Grey Geese

by Mother Goose

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

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.




Here’s a fun clip of someone reading an alliteration poem by well-known kids’ poet, Jack Prelutsky ~

Here’s a silly one I wrote – for what it’s worth:

“Cute Cook”

Candy cooked a coconut cake

Because Ben bet she didn’t bake

She surprised several siblings

Once they nabbed her nice nibblings

Ben called out, “Candy can cook!”

Let’s linger longer and have a look.

© 2017 Stephanie Abney

And this one, I have NO idea what I would classify it as, but I’m calling it “Random Ramblings” ~ but – it DOES have some alliteration in it.

“Random Ramblings”

I love the lingering lilt of letters,

As they roll off the loquacious tongue of

Those skilled in stringing sights and sounds

Together, forever, to remain remarkably in the air,

Where one can examine, explore and adore such expositions

Exclamations, proclamations of love and allure, and more

Delight by design, entertain and endear, fact or fiction

Mesmerizing memories making habitation in the heart.

© 2017 Stephanie Abney

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