In poetry, it's sometimes the simile or metaphor which starts the poem off in the first place. The unexpected angle making a familiar thing look different, the observation that something looks, sounds, feels or behaves like something else, the juxtaposition of two unrelated experiences which suddenly have something in common: they may all leap out of the subconscious as simile or metaphor. So what's the difference between them?
When you say "the rugby ball was like a giant egg, which he held carefully while he ran" or "the cat leapt onto my shoulder and her claws, like thistle spines, pricked my skin painfully", you are using simile. 'Simile' literally means 'like' or 'the same as'.
METAPHOR
On the other hand, if you say "the rugby player cradled the giant egg ball" or "thistle spines pierced my skin when the cat leapt up", you are using metaphor. You are describing something as though it is actually something else. In one of my poems I call a dark cloud "a raven's wing". That's metaphor. I don't say the cloud is like a raven's wing. I wrote a poem called Silken Things which is full of metaphor because the things are none of them actually made of silk.
USING SIMILE & METAPHOR
There are no rules about when you should one and not the other. It depends on the effect you are trying to achieve, the way the poem scans, what comes before and after. But they are powerful tools in the poet's pen. They conjure up images, and are more instantly descriptive than a yard of prose.
If you think of the rough and tumble of a rugby football game, and then conjure up the image of the ball being a giant egg, I think you can immediately sense the delicacy and nimbleness of the runner and the awful smashing of the egg at touch.
If you've ever trodden on a thistle with a bare foot, you can immediately sense the pain of the cat's claws.
Writers use simile and metaphor in prose too, to bring life and richness to what they have to say.
Copyright © Virginia Purchon 1999
Page created on 3rd November 1999
This page was last updated on 13 November 2006.