Personification Poems

Published: July 2017

Examples Of Poems With Personification

Below are Examples of poems that showcase the literary device of personification, but first let's talk about Personification:

What Is Personification?

Personification is when you give human attributes (characteristics) to the object that is being personified. The objects are not human, and in many cases, they're not even living things.

Why Use Personification in Poetry?

  • Personification can be used to emphasize a point in your writing.
  • It can also be used to make a reader understand something you're trying to say.
  • Personification is a way to add more description to your poem by giving human characteristics to inanimate objects.

Examples of Personification in Poetry:

  • The breeze kissed my cheek.
  • When I got home from school my dog smiled at me.
  • The blanket wrapped its arms around me.
  • Rays of sunshine danced through the trees.
  • The chainsaw hummed a tune.

Poem Personification Template - Try It Yourself

This poem is a great representation of personification because it makes winter seem human.


Winter by Olivia Kooker

If winter were a person, she would be a girl with frosty hair.
Winter would wear snow pants, snow boots, gloves, a hat, and scarf.
Winter would smell like hot chocolate and peanut butter and Hershey Kiss cookies baking in the oven.
Winter would spend the day eating cookies and drinking hot cocoa by a lake.
Winter would spend the night by sitting in the snow waiting for morning so children could come out to play.

Download: Personification Poem Template (PDF)

Try writing your own personification poem by thinking of a season and describing it as though it's a person by using characteristics of the season to describe what it would wear, smell like, and spend time doing.

31 Examples Of Poems With Personification

  1. Dandelion

    • By Nellie M. Garabrant

    Famous Poem

    Nellie M. Garabrant's "Dandelion" is a charmingly whimsical poem that personifies a dandelion throughout its life cycle. It begins with a playful description of the dandelion as a "dandy little fellow" in his golden prime, frolicking through the meadow. However, the poem takes a poignant turn as the dandelion ages, losing its vibrancy and becoming a "poor little baldhead dandy." The poem effectively captures the beauty and transience of life through the lens of a simple flower.

    in Famous Children Poems

    There's a dandy little fellow,
    Who dresses all in yellow,
    In yellow with an overcoat of green;
    With his hair all crisp and curly,

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  2. A Blade Of Grass

    Famous Poem

    This poem employs personification to imbue a blade of grass with human-like qualities. The grass becomes a symbol of empathy and compassion. The poet contrasts the seemingly emotionless stream with the grass's ability to feel and respond to the water's implied sorrow. The poem explores the idea of empathetic projection, as the grass takes on the emotional burden of the stream.

    in Famous Poems

    A blade of grass is bending
    Above the moaning stream,
    In sympathy is blending
    Where troubles only seem.

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  4. Snow-Flakes

    Famous Poem

    Snow-Flakes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a beautiful description of the way snow falls from the sky and covers the landscape. The snowflakes are described as silent, soft, and slow, creating a sense of stillness and peace. The comparison between the way snowflakes take shape in the air and the way our thoughts take shape in our minds suggests a connection between the natural world and our inner world. The final stanza suggests that there is something deeply meaningful about the snowflakes and the way they reveal the secret of despair.

    in Famous Nature Poems

    Out of the bosom of the Air,
    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
    Over the woodlands brown and bare,
    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

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  5. The Room Of My Life

    Famous Poem

    Anne Sexton is a famous poet known for writing about challenging topics, often expressing despair in her work. In the poem "Room of Life," she reveals the troubled life she led through vivid imagery, including objects that seem to take on a life of their own. Sexton sees each object in her room as a reflection of her own life, including the books, the typewriter, the phone, and even the windows. She feeds both the world outside and her own inner world, but she struggles to find meaning in her existence.

    in Famous Sad Poems

    Here,
    in the room of my life
    the objects keep changing.
    Ashtrays to cry into,

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  7. There Will Come Soft Rains (War Time)

    Famous Poem

    The Sedition Act of 1918 made it a crime to express any dissenting views about the U.S. involvements in World War I. This forced writers like Sara Teasdale to express their opposition to the war in more subtle ways. The poem suggests that even if humans were to be destroyed by war, the earth would continue to exist and even flourish without us. The personification of Spring as being indifferent to the fate of humanity emphasizes that the meaning of our existence is something that we create for ourselves, and that nature is not concerned with us. The poem is a powerful statement against the wasteful nature of war, and a reminder that we must strive to protect the natural world that sustains us.

    in Famous Nature Poems

    There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
    And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

    And frogs in the pools singing at night,

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  8. The Life Of A Leaf

    • By Paul Holmes
    • Published by Family Friend Poems February 2023 with permission of the Author.

    Leaves are everywhere. We see them everyday. People are the same. Notice the parallel...

    in Beauty of Nature Poems

    SPRING

    I slowly unfurl to the wide World
    Stretching up to the blue sky

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  9. Finding Joy

    • By Trent D. Et
    • Published by Family Friend Poems March 2021 with permission of the Author.

    True Happiness is my definition of "Joy," which I can recognize, as I have experienced much previously. She slipped away in my early to mid-20s. I am now 55. I wrote this poem 17 years ago. It is mostly a rhyming, rhythmic poem, but I found that to be somewhat boring, so to create a little confusion and struggle in the reading, I disrupted the rhythmic feature of my poem in a couple places and found this to be symbolic of the confusion and struggle of my life without true happiness.

    in Depression Poems

    Have you seen Joy? I have not seen her in so, so long,
    I miss her, oh how I miss her and her heartwarming song.

    I keep searching and searching and asking why

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  10. The Last Leaf On The Tree

    It's about a leaf I saw hanging onto a tree in autumn/winter.

    in Fall Poems

    The last leaf on the tree, that's me.
    Yes, look up high, that's me.
    All my friends have been blown down.
    They're waiting for me on the ground.

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  11. The Summer

    • By Sydney Harris
    • Published by Family Friend Poems June 2019 with permission of the Author.

    Hello, I am Sydney Harris, and I am in fifth grade. I love to write and dance. I am very inspired by other poets' poetry. I am originally from California and now I live in London. Enjoy my poem!

    in Beach Poems

    The saffron-yellow sun grins on top of the beige sand,
    and the aquamarine waves wash up onto the seashore.
    The towering palm trees sway from side to side
    as the gentle wind whistles through the beach.

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  12. Glorious Spring

    • By Shayan Das
    • Published by Family Friend Poems April 2019 with permission of the Author.

    Spring is known as the season of life. Nature gets back its color in this splendid season. Spring had been the heart of imagination for thousands of poets and artists since hundreds of years, and truly the exquisite beauty of spring has inspired me to write this short acrostic poem.

    in Spring Poems

    Sing the birds; the season has come.
    Prettiest look nature does hold.
    Rejoices the Earth, her color winsome.
    Idyllic her beauty, pretty as gold.

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  13. A Miracle To Behold

    I wrote this one day while I was visiting the ocean.

    in Ocean Poems

    Seagulls soar above her surf,
    The sun reflects and gleams,
    While people come from miles around
    To stroll upon her beach.

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    Dear Elizabeth, Growing up in New Jersey, I have always had easy access to the ocean. I love the ocean but, I have always been interested in the beauty of the PACNW. I love to look at films...

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  14. The Brook

    Famous Poem

    The Industrial Revolution took place in Great Britain during the late 1700s and early 1800s. As cities grew, living conditions deteriorated for the poor and working class. Factories and mass production were beneficial for some but not everyone. This poem stands in contrast of new manufacturing processes of that time period by focusing on nature. The narrator in this poem, the brook, is personified. The brook shows persistence by continuing to flow, no matter what obstacles get in its way. The repeated lines, “For men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever,” showcase that. Famous poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was named Poet Laureate in Great Britain and Ireland.

    in Famous Nature Poems

    I come from haunts of coot and hern,
    I make a sudden sally
    And sparkle out among the fern,
    To bicker down a valley.

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    I was read poetry to my mother born 1929 in faraway Colombo, Sri Lanka. She loved this poem, and I remember her animated voice bringing the words hidden in the babbling brook to life and the...

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  15. I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

    Famous Poem

    "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is a lyric poem that expresses deep feelings about the beauty of nature. William Wordsworth was a well-known poet of the Romantic era, which began at the beginning of the 1800s. The focus during the Romantic era was on people's feelings and their connectedness to nature. That was a drastic shift from the emphasis on science and reason of the Enlightenment era, which came before. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is one of Wordsworth's most famous poems. It was inspired by a journal entry his sister wrote recounting when the two of them went for a walk along the bay and saw a large number of daffodils.

    in Famous Nature Poems

    I wandered lonely as a cloud
    That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
    When all at once I saw a crowd,
    A host, of golden daffodils;

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    Honestly! How lovely is this poem when read aloud. I can see the yellow heads of the daffodils doing their sprightly dance! And, when in the meditative state, I can feel them in my heart...

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  16. Who Am I?

    Famous Poem

    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) writes this poem in the form of a free verse riddle. It follows no specific structure or rhyme scheme. When we find out the answer to the riddle, we see that this poem uses personification to describe it. Carl Sandburg’s interest in President Abraham Lincoln (“Honest Abe”) led him to write two multi-volume biographies. These biographies brought Sandburg the honor of the 1939 Pulitzer Prize in History.

    in Famous Poems

    My head knocks against the stars.
    My feet are on the hilltops.
    My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
    Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.

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  17. The Summer's End

    The poem tries to describe the changes that occur as summer comes to an end and how I respond to it emotionally.

    in Summer Poems

    The familiar rhythm of the cricket's chirps
    Create the soundtrack for each day,
    Echoing Summer's end
    And that Autumn's on her way.

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    End of summer, yes, when my daughter goes outside and comes back in to ask, "How does the weather know it's back to school time?" when the chill in the morning air precedes the special crisp...

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  18. Solstice Queen

    Summer is such a beautiful season of the year, all of the lush green and beautiful vibrant colors but most of all the perfumed scents of all the flowers, bushes and trees, the beautiful creatures come out to greet Summer as well, or should I say Summer brings the creatures out of hiding and to life. The butterflies are particularly one sure sign of Summer, along with fireflies that sparkle in the evenings, the smells of nectar of fruit trees. Summer touches nearly every place with her beauty!

    in Summer Poems

    As she tip-toes cross the sea,
    she slips in so subtly.

    Sharing her charms upon the earth,

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    I have read three of this poet's pieces now and they are all wonderful! She personifies the seasons and brings them magically to life and both paints a picture and tells a story at once....

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  19. Spring's Way

    This short poem is in Haiku style and about the transformation of winter into spring. I think it explains the struggle of the transformation of winter's nature, of trying to hold on a little longer, while spring's nature of taking over always wins, giving way to the brand new life, new love, and the charm of spring! In just a few short lines spring always wins her way, dancing well into May and June! Many weddings are planned during these months because of the fairness and beauty of the spring weather.

    in Spring Poems

    Winter fights to stay.
    Sweet Spring always wins her way.
    Flowers bloomed today!

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  20. Sleepy

    Sleep has always been a fascinating mystery to me. It's something I really appreciate. When I watch little children fall asleep, it's an appealing sight, so I decided to write a simple poem about it.

    in Funny Poems for Kids

    There is this funny guy I know.
    Sleepy by name and sneaky as can be.
    I never know where he comes from,
    Only that he creeps up on me.

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    It is a very simple poem highlighting the importance of sleep. Sleep is an integral part of human behavior. Without it, everything becomes useless. Good health can't be achieved without...

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  21. The Beginning

    • By Blackrose7
    • Published by Family Friend Poems January 2017 with permission of the Author.

    I had been struggling with depression for a couple of years. This is how I felt when I first noticed it.

    in Depression Poems by Teens

    He whispered to her one day, Depression did.
    She was just reading in her room when
    He creeped up and whispered in her ear,
    "No one loves you."

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    This is very well written. The message here can also be associated with any addiction. It's just how it works. You shut it out for ages, you struggle every day, then when you're not on your...

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  22. Sing To Me, Autumn

    Since I was a child, I've loved the season of autumn. I love its return each year with its vibrant magical colors, warm bright days, the change from the heat of summer into cool but crystal clear sparkling nights, and the aroma of the woods and spice in the atmosphere. It's like a familiar loved one or friend who's back for a visit. It's the same season each year, but it's always new and refreshing. We share our lives with the seasons. As we mature, we understand ourselves and all the world more intimately.

    in Fall Poems

    Sing to me, Autumn, with the rustle of your leaves.
    Breathe on me your spicy scents that flow within your breeze.

    Dance with me, Autumn, your waltz that bends the boughs of trees.

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    This poem beautifully provides us an opportunity to feel connected with nature. As human beings, we have been born in the lap of nature, have grown under the protection of nature, but we’ve...

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