The most important literary device used in Braiding Sweetgrass is personification. The author also renders her prose more poetic with vivid imagery and devices such as anaphora and chiasmus.

In Braiding Sweetgrass, personification is not merely an incidental literary device used for ornament. It is central to the book's message. The author regards the earth as a living being, wise and compassionate. She is constantly referring to the elements as though they were alive and communicating with her:

I close my eyes and listen to the voices of the rain.

However, it is the land which is most consistently treated as a living, thinking, and feeling being:

The land knows you, even when you are lost.

The author frequently asserts that the land is wiser than the people who live on it:

The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.

Aside from this central message, the book is written in prose that has a lyrical quality and is often aphoristic, with vivid images:

Grain may rot in the warehouse while hungry people starve because they cannot pay for it.

Since the prose is poetic, it often employs poetic devices, as well as rhetorical ones, since it is also making an argument. This example of anaphora could easily be laid out as a poem and read as one:

I want to stand by the river in my finest dress. I want to sing, strong and hard, and stomp my feet with a hundred others so that the waters hum with our happiness. I want to dance for the renewal of the world.

The following chiasmus emphasizes the reciprocity of humanity's relationship with the earth:

As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.