Similes and Metaphors
By Lee Bennett Hopkins

Similes and metaphors are to poetry what yeast is to bread, and robin redbreasts are to springtime. They are the most constant properties of poetic form.

Similes
A simile is a comparison that uses the words like or as. Over time, many similes that we use in everyday language have become clichés, for example, as quiet as a mouse, as soft as a feather, as green as grass.

Get young writers past such clichés by brainstorming other comparisons. Ask, "What else can something be as quiet as, as soft as, as green as?" Make lists on the chalkboard as children respond. Once started, they'll come up with surprising results.

Metaphors
A metaphor compares two dissimilar things suggesting that one thing is another. A famous metaphor is from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII, when the character Jaques recites the soliloquy, "All the world's a stage/And all the men and women merely players."

The search is on
Encourage children to look for examples of similes and metaphors in poetry they enjoy. A good source is the book Earthshake: Poems from the Ground Up by Lisa Westberg Peters (Greenwillow, 2003). In "Living with Lava," the poet uses a simile to compare lava as if "It squeezes out of a volcano/like fiery black toothpaste." In "Michigan Sahara," she uses the metaphor, "Sand dunes/in Michigan/are a pretend trip to the Sahara." Once children are familiar with both terms they can use their original creations in poems they write.

Reference shelf
As: A Surfeit of Similes by Norton Juster (Morrow, 1998). Juster provides many examples of similes, several in rhyming text form – "as empty as air," "as firm as a melon" and "as friendly as a slipper" are among the multitudes of similes in this easy-to-read book.

Wonderful Words: Poems About Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening (Simon & Schuster, 2004) Lee Bennett Hopkins, ed. This collection features the poem "Metaphor" by Eve Merriam, beginning with the line, "Morning is/a new sheet of paper/for you to write on." This is a perfect verse to acquaint children with the technique. After sharing the verse, ask, "What other things can morning be compared to? What can afternoon or night be compared to?"

Have fun!

Lee Bennett Hopkins is a celebrated poet and anthologist. His collection, A Pet for Me: Poems (HarperCollins) is now available in paperback.

April 2004, Vol.34, No.7