I don't understand i need help ? can you explain what i'm suppose to do

Question

At first, the clubs were frightening,

swinging away from my hands in strange patterns—

red—yellow—blue—

chaotic, unpredictable,

colliding like doomed galaxies

in midair.

Best to jump back, to let go.

I tried to tame them, then,

launching one at a time, only one

in a slow, controlled arc.

Cautiously I added a second,

letting the last wait in my hand

while its fellows soared . . .

but it was such a handful!

Always there was one too many,

smashing down on my fingers,

bouncing away from my grasp.

At last I learned

how to grip with my thumb, how to keep my fingers waiting.

I caught the clubs as they came down:

One, two. Stop.

One, two. Stop.

But I could not let the third club go.

I resigned myself to two;

two was easy, familiar.

There was no fear of breaking things,

no worry of losing control.

Over and over I flipped the colors,

but still everything was missing.

And then there came a day

when I let go with full force,

spinning the third club away

with the sudden trust that it would come back.

It did.

Solidly they kept returning,

one two three one two three,

perfect rhythm in my hands.

Perfect order, perfect chaos,

for as long as I could trust the risk

of each new throw.

*the question I don't understand is ?

Juggling" by Ann Pedtke, identify 2 poetic devices and explain their intended effect. 

Answer 1

There are different ways that writers choose to phrase things in order to make their message come across stronger, and each "poetic device" refers to a specific way of doing this. Some examples of poetic devices include metaphor, simile, alliteration, and personification.

Metaphor is the name for what an author is doing when they compare two things by saying one "is" the other; for example, if someone wrote "her eyes are diamonds," that would be a metaphor.

A simile also compares two things, but phrases it differently, using "like" or "as." For example, the metaphor above, "her eyes are diamonds," can be turned into a simile by adding the word "like" ("her eyes are like diamonds").

Alliteration refers to when multiple words in the same passage have similar consonant sounds, for example "dreary dawning day."

Personification is when the author describes an object as if it were human--for example, if they were to say "lightning danced across the sky."

There are more different kinds of poetic devices than what I listed above, and you can google them if you want, but these are some of the most common ones. What you're being asked to do is find 2 places in the poem where the author uses one of these poetic devices, and explain why you think the author chose to use those specific poetic devices in those places--what message was the author trying to send by phrasing things that way?

I hope this helps!