Poems with Personification
Personification is a literary device that attributes human qualities, emotions, or behaviors to non-human things — animals, objects, abstract concepts, or forces of nature.
When a poet writes that 'the wind whispered secrets' or 'grief sat heavy on the doorstep,' they're using personification to make the abstract tangible and the inanimate relatable. This device creates an emotional bridge between reader and subject, transforming observation into empathy. Personification is one of the most powerful tools in a poet's arsenal because it taps into our instinct to find human connection everywhere — in the way trees 'dance,' storms 'rage,' or time 'marches on.' By giving human attributes to the non-human, poets make the unfamiliar intimate and the ordinary extraordinary.
Examples of Personification
- 1The sun smiled down on the quiet village (the sun given the human ability to smile)
- 2Death knocked gently at her door (death portrayed as a visitor)
- 3The ocean roared its disapproval (the ocean given human emotions and voice)
Poems Using Personification
The Second Shelf
FeaturedThere's a word for the way your coffee cup still sits on the second shelf where no one else would put it—
What the Body Remembers
My hands still set the table for two. Not every night—just Thursdays, when my hands forget
The Chair by the Window
My father's chair still faces the window where he watched the street as if expecting a delivery
November Field
November twilight— the scarecrow still stands alone. Sparrows left in June.
What the Clock Said
When I was young, the afternoons were countries with no border known, and summer hummed its lazy tunes
Sonnet for the Sleepless
The house at three a.m. becomes a throat that hums with all the things we didn't say, and I lie still as someone in a boat
Sonnet at the Edge of Spring
The earth is trying something underneath— you feel it in the softness of the ground, a stirring, like a sleeper holding breath
The Vicar's Complaint
A preacher who prayed every night for a sign he was living it right heard thunder at ten
August, and Everything After
August is a thief who comes dressed as a gift: the peach at its most golden
A Hymn in Four Seasons
Praise the cracking open of the seed, the blind ambition of the buried root, the robin's first bewildered, breathless creed