7 Tips for Creating (Poignant) Poetic

Metaphors
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Metaphors are a great tool to use if you want to liven up your poetry, and make people really
think more deeply about what you write. Check out these poems that make great use of
metaphor, and keep reading to find out what exactly a metaphor is, and how to use one correctly.

1. What is it? A metaphor is a word or phrase which refers to one object or concept, but is
used in place of a different object or concept as an analogy in order to show that the two
things are similar. Its really a lot less complicated than it sounds. Trust us.

2. No, its not the same thing as a simile! You might have heard of a simile, which is also the
comparison of two unlike things in writing, but there is a slight difference. The easiest
way to tell a simile apart from a metaphor is that similes use the words like or as to
compare two things, and metaphors do not. For example, a simile could be Her eyes
shone as brightly as the sun while a metaphor would be Her eyes were sunshine.

3. When do I Use a Metaphor? In poetry, metaphors are most often used when you want to
compare two things so that the reader understands their similarity in an indirect way. You
use exaggeration to say what you want without really saying what you mean. This makes
the reader find the meaning for themselves.

4. Lets Break it Down: Think of an object or idea that youd like to write about, then
brainstorm some other objects or ideas that are similar to it. Once you have the two, try to
form a phrase which makes it clear that one is like the other. Youre definitely familiar
with some metaphors you just might not have known what figure of speech they were.
Ever heard of it raining cats and dogs, or have you met someone with a heart of stone?
Yup, youve met a metaphor.

5. How to Create a Metaphor: Take the sentence I was drowning in the deep blue sea as
an example. Read literally and out of context, this means exactly what it says. However,
in a poem, a writer might use this sentence to express sorrow. Drowning can be
interpreted to mean being overwhelmed, or struggling against something beyond our
control. The color blue is often used to symbolize sadness, and the ocean is salt water
just like tears. So "drowning in the deep blue sea" makes a popular metaphor for
struggling against overwhelming sadness. Voila! A metaphor!

6. Extended Metaphors: Sometimes poets choose to use one metaphor in the beginning of a
poem, and elaborate on it as the poem unfolds. This is a good tactic to keep in mind, since
too many different metaphors in one poem can get pretty confusing with all the different
symbols and comparisons.
 7. Power Poetry: Now that you have the hang of metaphors, take them for a test run! Show
off your newfound skills by posting your poems to Power Poetry.

Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

The Journey
Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
Mend my life!
each voice cried.
But you didnt stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life that you could save.

-from Dream Work

Examples of Metaphors in Poems

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A metaphor is a comparison between two things that replaces the word or name for one object
with that of another. Unlike a simile that uses like or as (you shine like the sun!), a metaphor
does not use these two words (a famous line from Romeo and Juliet has Romeo proclaiming
Juliet is the sun). Metaphors are commonly used throughout all types of literature, but rarely to
the extent that they are used in poetry.

Famous Metaphors in Poetry

Because poems are meant to impart often complex images and feelings to a reader, metaphors
often state the comparisons most poignantly.

Here are a few of the most famous metaphors ever used in poetry:

The Sun Rising

She is all states, and all princes, I.

Metaphysical poet John Donne was well-known for his use of metaphor throughout his poetical
works.

In his famous work The Sun Rising, the speaker scolds the sun for waking up him and his
lover. Among the most evocative metaphors in literature, he explains she is all states, and all
princes, I. This line demonstrates the speakers belief that he and his lover are richer than all
states, kingdoms, and rulers in all the world because of the love that they share.
Other metaphors appear throughout the poem as well. In the following line, the speaker explains
to the sun that compared with his love,

all honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

In essence, any sense of honor and pride is diminished by the honor felt in his love, and all
material wealth is little more than alchemy, a pseudo-science that tried to turn common elements
such as lead into gold.

Sonnet 18
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day,

If one poet ever mastered the metaphor, that poet has to be William Shakespeare. His poetical
works and his dramas all make extensive use of metaphors.

Sonnet 18, also known as Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day, is an extended analogy
between the love of the speaker and the fairness of the summer season. He writes that thy
eternal summer, here taken to mean the love of the subject, shall not fade.

This love poem continues to use metaphor through the final stanza, a rhyming couplet.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Love in this metaphor takes on the characteristics of the summer, a life-giving force, and a force
that somehow possesses life itself.

When I Have Fears

before high-pild books, in charactry Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain,

The great romantic poet John Keats suffered great loss in his lifehis father to an accident, his
mother and brother to tuberculosis.

When he began displaying signs of tuberculosis himself at 22 years of age, he wrote When I
Have Fears, a poem rich with metaphor concerning life and death. The line before high-pild
books, in charactry / Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain, he employs a double-
metaphor.

Writing poetry is implicitly compared with reaping and sowing, and that reaping and sowing
represents the emptiness of a life unfulfilled creatively.

Keats metaphor extends throughout the poem, the image of books of poetry unwritten stacked
on the shelves of the imagination leading to an inexorable conclusion:

on the shore / of the wide world I stand alone, and think / Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

The end of his life is represented here as a shore where he stands and meditates until he forgets
the sorrows of his too-short existence.

Metaphors
I've eaten a bag of green apples

"Boarded the train there's no getting off

Sylvia Plath, an American poet in the 20th century, wrote some of the most evocative poetry of
the time period. Her poem Metaphors takes a close and often ambiguous look at her pregnancy
throughunsurprisinglyseveral incongruous metaphors. Im a metaphor, she explains, an
elephant, a ponderous house.

While these metaphors obviously focus on the shape of her body as a pregnant woman, other
metaphors are less clear. Some believe that the line I've eaten a bag of green apples and the
following line, Boarded the train there's no getting off is a metaphor for her fear of childbirth,
or even her desire for an abortion.

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