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Poetic Device · Reference

Anaphora

A move poets keep coming back to.

What is anaphora in poetry? It's the technique of repeating the same word or phrase at the start of consecutive lines or clauses. That's the basic definition. But understanding what it is and grasping what it does are two different matters.

Definition

When a poet repeats an opening word or phrase, they're achieving something a single statement can't convey on its own: they're building. Each repeated line adds weight to the previous one, much like a drumbeat that intensifies before a song erupts. The reader begins to feel the buildup before they consciously recognize the pattern.

Anaphora also generates momentum. Since the ear is already attuned to how the line will begin, attention shifts to what follows the repeated phrase. The variations at the end of each line hit harder. The contrast between the unchanging opening and the evolving ending is where the emotional impact resides.

Poets use anaphora when they want to elevate a list beyond mere enumeration, when they desire insistence over argument, or when they aim to give readers the sensation of a truth being perceived from multiple perspectives simultaneously. It appears in elegies, celebrations, protests, and prayers. Walt Whitman practically built his career on it, as did the authors of the King James Bible, which is why anaphora can feel both timeless and urgent simultaneously.

If you've ever read a poem and felt like you were being swept along, almost as if you were being carried, there's a good chance anaphora played a role in that experience.

Annotated examples

From the corpus · I to I.
  1. I.from the corpus

    And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

    Why this works

    Frost often starts successive clauses with the conjunction 'And' throughout the poem, creating a subtler form of anaphora that reflects how memory tends to circle back. This repetition of 'And' propels the speaker forward while connecting each thought to the previous one, evoking the sense of someone reasoning their way into a decision they've already reached. It lends the poem a contemplative, slightly uneasy tone.

    from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Reader’s guide

How to spot anaphora

Here's what to look for when reading a poem and suspecting that anaphora is in play:

  1. Scan the left margin. Anaphora occurs at the beginning of lines. If you see the same word or phrase starting several consecutive lines, that's your clue.
  2. Read aloud. Your ear picks up on repetition more quickly than your eye. If you find yourself hitting the same sound or word at the start of each line, anaphora is likely at work.
  3. Check for consecutive or near-consecutive lines. Anaphora doesn’t need to appear in every line, but the repeated phrase should be close enough together that the pattern feels intentional.
  4. Look at what changes. The repeated opening is just part of the device. The variations that follow each repeated phrase are where the meaning shifts. If the endings serve different purposes each time, the anaphora is likely structural rather than accidental.
  5. Notice the emotional temperature. Anaphora often elevates intensity. If a passage feels urgent, incantatory, or like a developing argument, take another look at the line openings.
  6. Don’t confuse it with refrain. A refrain repeats an entire line, typically at regular intervals like a chorus. Anaphora only repeats the opening, while the rest of the line changes.

Writer’s guide

How to write with anaphora

Three concrete moves for putting anaphora to work in your own poems:

  1. Start with a verb and let the objects accumulate. Choose an action word and begin three or more lines with it, altering only what comes next. The repeated verb acts like an engine, with each new object it engages adding depth to the poem. For example: I have carried the name of every street I've left, I have carried the smell of my grandmother's kitchen, I have carried the weight of a language I almost forgot.
  1. Use a prepositional phrase to build a scene from multiple angles. Start each line with the same "where" or "when" phrase and vary the details. This technique shines particularly in elegies or poems about places. For instance: In the house where the windows faced east, in the house where we ate without speaking, in the house that is someone else's now.
  1. Repeat a negation to define something by what it isn't. Beginning lines with "Not" or "Never" creates anaphora that works through subtraction, which can come across as more sincere than a straightforward statement. For example: Not the grief I expected, not the silence I had practiced, not the version of myself I'd promised I would be.

Poems that turn on anaphora

From the public-domain corpus

Adjacent in Structure & rhythm

Open the collection →

Postscript

Frequent definitions