Poetry Terms

What is a Kenning?

A Kenning is a compressed metaphor or description using two nouns to describe a subject, place or object.

Examples of using a Kenning in a sentence:

• Story keeper - Book
• Word fisher - Poet
• Web maker - Spider
• Sky climber - Mountain

Kenning is used in poetry to create different effects. They can be combined to make a poem called a Kennings in which a collection of kenning lines are combined to describe an object.

Why don’t you try writing a poem using a kenning and enter it into one of our Poetry Competitions.