I remember Elisa posting on the pshares blog about "moves" in poetry--those recognizable devices we see other poets pulling out repeatedly or that we use often in our own poetry--and now she's mentioned them again on her blog. In the interest of self-examination, here are some moves I notice myself using in my own poetry:

• Portmanteau neologisms. I sprinkle these in a lot of my poems. Stipend + stupendous = "stipendous"; slur + certainly = "slurtainly"; disheveled + chivalry = "dishevelry."
  
• The 180-degree syntax turnaround. You've probably seen a lot of poets make the sharp turn in syntax, often over a linebreak. I like to do that, but often that's not enough of a surprise for me, so before that second direction has a chance to get on its feet, I make another sharp turn. It's the poetic version of throwing off a tail. Example: "you’d rather do / the laundry, your taxes, a polka, time..." This one actually starts with "do" and then makes three (by my count) turns (laundry/taxes aren't enough different thematically for me to call a turn between them). It's a multi-zeugma.
  
• Disguised end-rhyme. I've been playing with breaking stanzas up in a different pattern than the rhyme scheme when I use end-rhyme, as well as keeping the rhyme slant. I think I do this because I'm often pleased when I read a submission and it takes me partway through before I realize I'm reading a repeating form the author has done so skillfully that I didn't realize it was such.
• The massive pileup of modifiers. There's a canard in poetry that you should avoid modifiers, so once in a while I like to dump several on a single word, like "pirate rebel rockstar fucking cool" or "plastic scholastic system adventure theme parks." All the better if you have to untangle the words a little and they have great sonics.
• The illogical logical progression. Something that seems to be a logical or causal construct but is nothing of the sort. See here.
• The misstated aphorism/quotation/joke/slogan/figure of speech. More of these than I can shake a steak at. "Cite your sources the Chicago way"; "Bo knows artificial hip"; etc.
  

What moves do you like, either in your own work or in other poets?