In his poem “Romance Sonambulo,” Federico Garcia Lorca writes, “The stiff wind left / in their mouths, a strange taste / of bile, of mint, and of basil.” This taste profile correlates with Garcia Lorca’s frequent mention of the color green throughout the poem. Poets appeal to this sense by explaining what something tastes like, which can be particularly effective if the description is something the reader is familiar with. Imagery describing taste sensations is also referred to as gustatory imagery. The line “And kneeled and made the cheerless grate / Blaze up, and all the cottage warm ” in Robert Browning’s poem “Porphyria’s Lover” uses tactile imagery to describe the warmth of the cottage. This type of imagery might define characteristics like hardness, softness, wetness, heat or cold, according to Friends of Robert Frost. Feeling Sensations Through Wordsĭescribing the way something feels is called tactile imagery. John Keats ends his poem “To Autumn” with auditory imagery: “Hedge-crickets sing and now with treble soft / The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, / And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.” Poets might also use sound devices like onomatopoeia, or words that imitate sounds, as a means of describing sounds. Poets can also describe sounds that are heard, which is called auditory imagery. May Swenson’s poem “Water Picture” uses visual imagery throughout the poem, including the lines, “Long buildings hang and wiggle gently,” and “The arched stone bridge is an eye, with underlid / in the water.” Rather than merely saying she sees reflection in the water, the speaker of the poem describes what objects she sees and how the water distorts them or makes them seem like something else.
Poets will use other figurative language, such as metaphor, simile or personification to describe these images. Visual imagery appeals to the sense of sight by describing something the speaker of the poem sees.
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