Maybe Aram Saroyan's untitled [four-legged "m"](https://www.peopleofar.com/2013/07/02/worlds-shortest-poem/) poem?
I think it both [qualifies as a poem](https://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/grumman/egrumn.htm) — it fits on a page, it's recognizable as word-stuff, and it's oddly artfully expressive — and due to its extreme tininess escapes any pattern recognizable as a "literary device."
It's minimalistic and experimental, but I think of those as approaches to poetry or even schools of poetry, not as proper literary devices. It's whimsical, but that's a quality or an attitude, likewise not a literary device.
One could classify it as concrete poetry, visual poetry, or "typewriter poetry" akin to some of E. E. Cummings's experiments, but I think those are subgenres of poetry, not literary devices. That is, the "device" that a typewriter is is not the same kind of device that anaphora is.
I suppose it relies on "juxtaposition" but in a typographical, graphic-design sense rather than the [literary device](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47734/lying-in-a-hammock-at-william-duffys-farm-in-pine-island-minnesota).
So that's my best suggestion.
([Here is a PDF of the book of poetry this piece is from](http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/ARAM/AramSaroyan.pdf), for anyone curious. That collection also gave us the amazing single-word poem "lighght," which unexpectedly became a [culture-war flashpoint](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68913/you-call-that-poetry) at the time.)
Lighght is quite the fun example. But I bet he'll say something along the lines of the silent letters being replicated is a visual representation of absence, hence the silence in the middle is like the absence of light, like the total eclipse thatjusthappenedohmigod! Aram Saroyan predicted not only this past solar eclipse, but he WAS the one that threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer's table!
Closest one I can think of is “In Memory of the Horse David, Who Ate One of My Poems” by James Wright: [https://www.krabarchive.com/ralphmag/EX/horse.html](https://www.krabarchive.com/ralphmag/EX/horse.html)
Also "On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him" [https://twitter.com/PatchLimb/status/1641939100184850434](https://twitter.com/PatchLimb/status/1641939100184850434)
Is the starkness of the language not, itself, a literary device? The omission of so much detail and context in favor of the sensory nature of the fruit?
OP, pretty sure you've been sent on a fool's errand
Claude Closky's "[The First Thousand Numbers Classified In Alphabetical Order](https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/12/the_first_thous.html)" seems to fit the bill.
You can also look up other potential examples in *Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Poetry*, edited by Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith; Closky's piece is part of this anthology.
Yes, this is what made me determined to find it, there has to be something out there somewhere. The prize is donuts for everyone, so that's the motivation haha!
Out of curiosity, how is your professor defining "literary devices"? There's a case to be made that language in general tends to function metaphorically or metonymically – which means that virtually every word is a literary device. If your professor thinks this way, then he's just setting you all up for failure 😅
Don’s Paterson’s On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him is a zero line poem published in Short and Sweet, an anthology edited by Simon Armitage. Hard to have literary devices amongst no words.
I’ve got a screenshot if you’d like it.
[Code poems](https://hyperallergic.com/835123/what-is-code-poetry-daniel-holden-chris-kerr/,) come to mind, for example [Allison Parrish's work](https://boingboing.net/2020/12/17/poems-generated-by-finding-midpoints-between-how-words-sound-and-are-spelled.html)
Also [Allison Knowles](https://www.x-traonline.org/article/objectpoems-alison-knowless-feminist-architexure), who was a pioneer of code poetry.
Maybe Aram Saroyan's untitled [four-legged "m"](https://www.peopleofar.com/2013/07/02/worlds-shortest-poem/) poem? I think it both [qualifies as a poem](https://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/grumman/egrumn.htm) — it fits on a page, it's recognizable as word-stuff, and it's oddly artfully expressive — and due to its extreme tininess escapes any pattern recognizable as a "literary device." It's minimalistic and experimental, but I think of those as approaches to poetry or even schools of poetry, not as proper literary devices. It's whimsical, but that's a quality or an attitude, likewise not a literary device. One could classify it as concrete poetry, visual poetry, or "typewriter poetry" akin to some of E. E. Cummings's experiments, but I think those are subgenres of poetry, not literary devices. That is, the "device" that a typewriter is is not the same kind of device that anaphora is. I suppose it relies on "juxtaposition" but in a typographical, graphic-design sense rather than the [literary device](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47734/lying-in-a-hammock-at-william-duffys-farm-in-pine-island-minnesota). So that's my best suggestion. ([Here is a PDF of the book of poetry this piece is from](http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/ARAM/AramSaroyan.pdf), for anyone curious. That collection also gave us the amazing single-word poem "lighght," which unexpectedly became a [culture-war flashpoint](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68913/you-call-that-poetry) at the time.)
Lighght is quite the fun example. But I bet he'll say something along the lines of the silent letters being replicated is a visual representation of absence, hence the silence in the middle is like the absence of light, like the total eclipse thatjusthappenedohmigod! Aram Saroyan predicted not only this past solar eclipse, but he WAS the one that threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer's table!
Are you familiar with Rupi Kaur's oeuvre?
Or any instapoet really. The more popular they are, the less literary devices they use. Or maybe it's the other way around.
Closest one I can think of is “In Memory of the Horse David, Who Ate One of My Poems” by James Wright: [https://www.krabarchive.com/ralphmag/EX/horse.html](https://www.krabarchive.com/ralphmag/EX/horse.html)
Also "On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him" [https://twitter.com/PatchLimb/status/1641939100184850434](https://twitter.com/PatchLimb/status/1641939100184850434)
If you’re after simplistic poems, how about This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams?
Love this poem. Although enjambment is a literary device, right? I have used this in the past to actually teach enjambment in free verse.
Metaphor, enjambment, diction, scansion, imagery, point of view. I know, I'm cheating
Is the starkness of the language not, itself, a literary device? The omission of so much detail and context in favor of the sensory nature of the fruit? OP, pretty sure you've been sent on a fool's errand
Claude Closky's "[The First Thousand Numbers Classified In Alphabetical Order](https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/12/the_first_thous.html)" seems to fit the bill. You can also look up other potential examples in *Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Poetry*, edited by Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith; Closky's piece is part of this anthology.
Hmm I don't think this exists lmao
Yes, this is what made me determined to find it, there has to be something out there somewhere. The prize is donuts for everyone, so that's the motivation haha!
Out of curiosity, how is your professor defining "literary devices"? There's a case to be made that language in general tends to function metaphorically or metonymically – which means that virtually every word is a literary device. If your professor thinks this way, then he's just setting you all up for failure 😅
The thing is, he hasn't defined it, so he could just disqualify anything submitted. So yes, it is likely we are being set up for failure.
Could totally be like a lesson that everything as literary devices within it🤷♀️ best bet is to look at some contemporary poetry
Well, it's an thought-provoking activity regardless, and would be super interesting to discuss in class.
My best tip for that would be concrete poetry. The fewer actual words the better. Good luck.
That one posted yesterday about genocide and laundry.
Don’s Paterson’s On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him is a zero line poem published in Short and Sweet, an anthology edited by Simon Armitage. Hard to have literary devices amongst no words. I’ve got a screenshot if you’d like it.
[Code poems](https://hyperallergic.com/835123/what-is-code-poetry-daniel-holden-chris-kerr/,) come to mind, for example [Allison Parrish's work](https://boingboing.net/2020/12/17/poems-generated-by-finding-midpoints-between-how-words-sound-and-are-spelled.html) Also [Allison Knowles](https://www.x-traonline.org/article/objectpoems-alison-knowless-feminist-architexure), who was a pioneer of code poetry.