New York State Learning Education Standards and Core Curriculum. Figurative language is the opposite of literal language. The writer uses techniques like repetition, exaggeration, alliteration, personification, onomatopoeia, similes, and metaphors to create images in the reader's mind. Using a sound, word, or phrase more than once is known as repetition. When a writer intentionally stretches the truth, he/she is using exaggeration. When a writer repeats a consonant sound at the beginning of several words in a row, he/she is using alliteration. Poems are divided into groups of lines called stanzas. Words that end with the same sound are called rhyming words. Read More...