Poets, Allow Me to Reintroduce Metaphor and Simile

USE THESE FIGURES OF SPEECH TO ELEVATE YOUR CREATIVE WRITING

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Romeo and Juliet. Coyote and Raven. Lucy and Ethel. There have been many dynamic duos throughout history, but none so inseparable as Metaphor and Simile, those two figures of speech that are always taught together in third grade classrooms and onward. How could any of us forget that a metaphor is when you say something is something else and a simile is when you say it with “like” or “as”?

But alas, it seems that many of our era’s best(selling) poets are content to wallow in the literal, or extend only the tippy-top of their tiniest toe into the rich waters of metaphor and simile. Perhaps it’s because they learned these figures of speech so long ago, they’ve forgotten how they function. Or perhaps it’s because readers seem equally content to shrug off the imaginative leap required to appreciate the metaphorical. Whatever the case, getting reacquainted with metaphors and similes will make us all better readers and writers, so let’s cannonball in.

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