Rhyming Poems

Poems with Simile and Metaphors Examples for Readers

Poems with Simile and Metaphors Examples for Readers.

Similes and metaphors are used when the writer wants to compare two things. The variance between Similes and Metaphors is that Similes compare objects using “like” or “as,” and metaphors compare without those words.

Poems with Simile and Metaphors Examples for Readers

Popular poetry types include haiku, free verse, sonnets, and acrostic poems. It’s one thing to define each type; it’s another to enjoy a sample platter. Ready to open the doors to a world of verbal artistry? Let’s dig into some of the more prominent forms of poetry while I savor a few samples.

Simile in Poems

A simile is an easy way to compare two things without a lot of explanation, perfect for the spare language of a poem. You’ll recognize examples of simile poems because they will include comparisons using the words “like” or “as.” As long as the comparison is one thing to another, whether or not the two are alike, you can consider it a simile.

Are you ready to get comparative and have some fun? Let’s take a look at a variety of examples of simile poems and see if they’ll inspire you to create some of your finest work yet.

Fun Simile Poems

Here is an example of a simile poem “Your Teeth” by Denise Rogers drawing a comparison between teeth and stars:

“Your teeth are like stars;

They come out at night.

They come back at dawn

When they’re ready to bite.”

LoveToKnow’s Kelly Roper likens daydreaming to a balloon floating up into the air in this simile poem example:

Jerry’s mind wandered during class

Like a balloon floating up in the air.

While he daydreamed about eating lunch

His stomach growled loud like a bear.

His classmates laughed like hyenas,

Which made him feel like a fool.

From now on he’d listen to his mom

And eat breakfast before coming to school.

Also by Kelly Roper, this other example poem continues the fun with swinging on a play gym.

Sally cried, “Hey everyone, I want you to watch me.

I can swing on this play gym just like a monkey.”

She swung bar to bar until one bar she missed,

Then she fell and was so mad like an angry cat she hissed.

Famous Simile Poems

A simile poem, or in this case, a classic nursery rhyme, that everyone may know is “Twinkle Twinkle:”

“Twinkle, twinkle little star,

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high,

Like a diamond in the sky.”

In “A Lady,” Amy Lowell brings the description of a woman to life with similes:

“You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.”

Robert Burns used similes to describe love beautifully in “A Red, Red Rose:”

“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve’s like the melodie

That’s sweetly played in tune.”

“Simile” by N. Scott Momaday is one of the few poems where the entire poem is a simile, here comparing people to deer:

“What did we say to each other
that now we are as the deer
who walk in single file
with heads high
with ears forward
with eyes watchful
with hooves always placed on firm ground
in whose limbs there is latent flight”

“The Base Stealer” by Robert Francis is also chock full of similes:

“Poised between going on and back, pulled
Both ways taut like a tightrope-walker,
Fingertips pointing the opposites,
Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball
Or a kid skipping rope, come on, come on,
Running a scattering of steps sidewise,
How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases,

Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird,

He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,
Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate-now!”

Poems depict all emotions. You can feel the fear and confusion in these lines from the simile poem “Greater Than That” by Joyce Garacci:

“Like a bruised, little bird

Too confused to fly,

I’m trapped, in a word,

So confined am I.

A captive, collared lion

Alone in its pen,

I’m pacin’ and dyin’

In a manmade den.

For an eagle was not meant

To be locked in a cage,

Its life to be spent

Like a picture on a page.”

Metaphors in Poems

A metaphor is a comparison between two things that states one thing is another, in order to help explain an idea or show hidden similarities. Unlike a simile that uses “like” or “as” (you shine like the sun!), a metaphor does not use these two words. For example, in a famous line from Romeo and Juliet Romeo proclaims, “Juliet is the sun.”

Metaphors are commonly used throughout all types of literature, but rarely to the extent that they are used in poetry. Let’s take a look at a few examples of metaphors in poems, which will allow us to see why they lend themselves particularly well to this form of writing.

Famous Metaphors in Poems

Because poems are meant to impart complex images and feelings to a reader, metaphors often state comparisons more poignantly. Here are a few of the most famous metaphors ever used in poetry:

The Sun Rising

Metaphysical poet John Donne was well known for his use of metaphors. In this famous work “The Sun Rising,” the speaker tells the sun that nothing else is as important in the world as him and his lover.

“She is all states, and all princes, I.

Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compared to this,

All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.”

In one of the most evocative metaphors in literature Donne is claiming that his lover is like every country in the world, and he every ruler – nothing else exists outside of them. Their love is so strong that they are the world and all else is fake.

Poems with Simile and Metaphors: Read More Examples

Below are some examples of poems that use an overall metaphor or simile throughout the poem. For some teatime fun, try spotting the metaphors and similes in the following poems!

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.

By Robert Burns

Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

By Langston Hughes

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me. 

By Emily Dickinson

Do not forget, there are many other types of poetry examples: you’ve got free verse poems, ballad poems, and even long epic poems. Kindly share this post with your friends and family after reading it.

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