The poetic devices in the poem “A Government Driver on his Retirement” are synecdoche, alliteration, inversion, pun and onomatopoeia.

Poetry uses figures of speech to express deep thoughts, evoke imagination, bring beauty, paint picture and give shades of meaning to literary work.

1. Synecdoche: is a figure of speech in which a part of something represents the whole, or it may use a whole to represent a part. This can be found in this poem in lines:
   Line 1 – Many years on wheels
   Line 29 – On his way home on wheels
   ‘Wheels’ is used to refer to car(s) used by the persona for years to serve his fatherland.
2. Alliteration: is a literary device in which words having the same first consonant appear together in a line of poetry. This appears in lines:
   Line 2 – In faithful service to his fatherland
   Line 22 – Joy till no more joy to joy
   Line 25 – And so, he boozed and boozed
   Line 27 – From faithful service to fatherland
   Line 28 – He battled with his bottle booze
   Line 31 – He boomed his brand new car
   Alliteration in the poem is used to create rhythmic effects and to create mental pictures in the mind of the readers.
3. Inversion (Anastrophe) is One of the poetic devices in the poem A Government Driver on his Retirement is inversion. Inversion is a poetic device in which there is a syntactic reversal of the normal word order or sentence structure. It can be in the form of placing verb before its subject or placing an adjective after the noun it modifies. Poets use inversion to achieve rhyme, maintain rhyme scheme or achieve emphasis. Examples in this poem:
   Line 3 – Today retires he home
   Line 4 – And a celebration he holds
   Line 5 – Many years has he pummeled his boozy throat.
4. Pun: is a play on words to produce humorous effect. It is usually common with homonyms. In this poem, the poet played on the words ‘home’ and ‘booze’. ‘Home’ in this poem has different shades of meaning. It was used in lines 2, 10, 17, 29 and 32. At the beginning of the poem, home refers to the physical home of the persona. Although we can say, it was the real home in the mind of the persona but the poet meant more than that considering retirement could also mean death in the real sense of life.
   In line 33, home refers to grave or heaven. This is where absolute rest resides. The freedom the persona desires from call to duty rests in the grave. People are solely at peace when then are laid to rest. Hence the line Home to rest in peace.
   In line 30, Booze is used as noun to mean an intoxicating drink taken by the persona whereas the meaning of the verb ‘boozed’ is altered to mean that the persona’s vision was blurred and he made a wrong decision.
5. Onomatopoeia: is a poetic device which a word imitates the natural sounds of a thing. It usually used to create sound effects in poetry. This is another poetic device in the poem A Government Driver on his Retirement.
   The following examples are used in this poem:
   The use of the words ‘zoom’ and ‘boom’ in lines 10 and 31 respectively depict the speed and state with which the persona used to send himself home. In line 10 ‘I shall booze and zoom myself home.’ Here, the poet describes the persona’s impatience to enjoy his life and taste what it feels like to speed in car in contrast to his conservative manner of driving his bosses under strict rules and regulations for thirty-five years.
   In line 31, ‘He boomed his brand new car.’ Here the poet depicts the sound made by the car crash when the persona got involved in the accident. His ‘zooming off’ in the brand new car leads him to the long awaited homecoming filtered the air.