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Exploring Word-Play And Poetic Techniques In Kay Ryan's 'Turtle' Dr. Kirandeep Kaur Assistant Professor, T.S.G.G.S. Khalsa College Amritsar (Pb.), India ABSTRACT Poets create music by using different poetic techniques and word-play in poetry. Kay Ryan is one of them who has made a simple poem 'Turtle' magical by using appropriate words and techniques in describing a turtle's sluggish life journey, her stony appearance and her perseverance to overcome the hurdles on the way to success. This paper aims to explore her style in this metaphorical poem by focusing on the word-play and poetic techniques. Kay Ryan is an American poet who has published several volumes of poetry. From 2008-2010, she remained Poet Laureate of United States. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her book "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems" (2011, Grove Press 2010). It was described as a corpus stretching across forty-five years, humorous, defiant yet tender, literary output of a jovial mind. In 'Turtle', she uses the animal as a metaphor for human struggle. During one of her lectures, she admitted that she wrote 'Turtle' when she felt that her life was as sluggish and dreary as that of a turtle. She wanted things to happen fast in her life, but sadly, it did not happen. So, 'Turtle' becomes a metaphor for human struggle and perseverance. With the help of word play, she creates images to describe the animal as hard- shelled, slow moving and clumsy creature. However, in the end of the poem she acknowledges her perseverance in getting what she wants. This fifteen lined poem is written in free verse, making use of half-rhyme; there is repetition of vowel sounds like "graces" and "places" (lines 4-5) and consonant - sounds like "slope" and "hope" (lines 6-7). She delights in surprising readers by what she her-self calls "recombinant rhyme" where one word would rhyme with the back of another one. Her opinion is that words want to be together. Internal rhyme repeats itself three time: "four- oared" (line-2) "afford" (line-3), and "towards" (line-4). She makes use of alliteration, personification and enjambment. Alliteration involves the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of closely connected words, enhancing musicality. For example, "hard" and "helmet" in lines (2-4) and "grasses" and "graceless" in lines(4-5) Poet's choice in referring 'Turtle' as "she" gives her human characteristics like becoming frustrated, tired, and patient. So, 'Turtle' and a human being become co-related. Continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line or stanza or phrase, forces the reader to shift glance quickly to the next line. This technique is known as enjambment and the poet has used it throughout the poem for example, transition between lines 3-4 and also in lines 5-6. This poem leaves a powerful message that a person does not need to be fast paced to achieve the target; he just needs to keep moving slowly but consistently to achieve the goal. Slow and steady wins the race. The poet has successfully turned an ordinary poem into an enticing one where reader needs to move quickly to the next line to finish the poem. Her style has made the poem worth reading as it lends a charm to the persona of an ordinary creature.