Metaphor

Metaphors are very important to most writing as it's a way of understanding something by comparing things know, to better understand the unknown. Metaphors can explain things we don't understand with things we already know. For example, "My mothers eye's fired up with rage." It is clearly impossible for someones eyes to be on fire but with the use of a metaphor we can imagine how intense her anger is. Metaphors are used in poems due to the fact they help people visualize and understand things like emotions, relationships, and objects. This is a technique used by most authors due to the simplicity and effectiveness of the writing style.

There are many forms of metaphors.

There are many forms of metaphors such as personification is giving human qualities to animals or objects. For example "The cat walking upright speaking in clear English." Clearly a cat can't walk upright and speak but that's the beauty, it let's our imagination free. There are also metaphors called hyperbole when we over exaggerate something. For example "I punched him so hard he exploded." There is no way someone can punch with that much force. One of the most common metaphors used with regular people and writers is Anthropomorphism when we give God or Gods human characteristics. For example Kratos the God of war they characterized him with human features such as human body, feelings,and speaking. Another metaphor is parable which is a short story telling a lesson or shows instructive principles. There's also fables which tell a story combining animals with human events. For example The tortoise and the hare

Here are some poem with different metaphors

The poem peace by © StarFields 2004. This whole poem is and example of many different metaphors including hyperbole, personification and analogy. In the first half there is a mix of personification, hyperbole and analogy
"The wind is now
a roaring, smashing
monster of destruction,
raking all man's work
from the valleys,
from the vales,and sends them spinning,

broken flying" Clearly the wind can't do the things characterized by the Poet. But these metaphors are used in assistance of imagery we observe with our imagination the wind as a big monster or as some big annoyance that is destructive.

Creativity by © StarFields 2004.
On the wall,
there is a shadow
of a branch outside.
It moves and it is dancing.
It writes its story
and the ink
is living light.

This poem is one big personification. For example the write states. "A branch outside it moves and it is dancing." in animate objects can't dance. In our mind we visualize the branch and we will probably depict it as dancing.

Useing similes to identify an elephant.

In this image of an elephant there are multiple simile references such as. There are a handful of blind men describing the body part they are feeling with things they recognize or resembles the object they are touching. For example there is one blind man hold the the elephants nose describing it, "An elephant is like an empty oil pipeline." Obviously the elephant isn't an oil pipe line but since the man has never seen an elephant before he is lead to believe that from what he felt since he can't hold the whole elephant to have a better understanding.

A poem by Sharon Hendrick using personification. Sharon Hendrick In the poem GAMES made extraordinary use of personification when we give human feature to an animal or in animate objects. She practically used personification through out the whole poem.
Chipmunks chatter and scurry,
Blue jays scream and scold.
Robins talk and gossip
demanding their story to be told.
Squirrels skip and box one another
and rabbits play hop scotch.
The games they play, the sounds they make
Really are top notch.

"Blue jays scream and scold" is an example of a personification as well for this line "Robins talk and gossip" we know animals do not perform these human actions but we use personification as well every other type of metaphor to further understand or explain things we naturally can't explain.

An Aesop fable.

In the fable "The bat and the birds" it tells a story about a bat trying to avoid helping out fellow animals by lying on what species he is. He is comparing a bat to what a human would most likely experience is he was selfish.

Emily Dickinson 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 The title it's self is personification since hope isn't an object or a human. "and the sweetest gale" is a form of hyperbole because a gale is a storm at sea and is being described as sweet in a sarcastic manner.

A Book
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any courser like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toil;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

In the first line "there is no frigate like a book" is an example of simile since it is contrasting a book with a frigate using the word like. The writer of the poem is explain how traveling can't get us to places like a book opens our imaginination so in some sense this poem resembles a hyperbole since it is exaggerating the power of a book.

       l(a

      le
      af
      fa

      ll

      s)
      one
      l

      iness

      e e cummings

That stated above is an obscure example of a metaphor at first glance it looks like gibberish but pay closer attention put the letters and punctuation together we unlock a hidden metaphor thanks to this page HELP SOURCE I found out that together it makes out

loneliness
(a leaf falls) 

All and all metaphors are great and are in our lives on a daily base. I use metaphors also to help open peoples mind when I am stuck on explaining something and don't know how too I mostly use similes since they are in my opinions the easiest to use. some people use metaphors to describe me for example my friends say " Joseph is a ticking time bomb of random." I am not sure what they mean by that but I know it is a metaphor since they are comparing me to an unlike object, the Timebomb.

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© Joseph Rivera 2011