Category: Writing prompts

Writing prompt: Metaphor and simile

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A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes something by saying it is something else. (“His eyes were brown stones.”) A simile  is a figure of speech that includes the words “like” or “as.” (She was as tired as an accountant on April 16.)

More examples:

1. His relationship was a sinking boat. (metaphor)

    His relationship felt like a sinking boat. (simile)

2. Chocolate was her only friend. (metaphor)

    To her, chocolate was as comforting as a best friend. (simile)

3. Her voice was fingernails on a chalkboard. (metaphor)

    Her voice sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. (simile)

 Writing prompt: Use a metaphor or simile to describe your job or home. Is your job an anchor? Does your house or apartment feel like a warm cave?

What I’m reading: My Father’s Vocabulary (poem)

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 My Father’s Vocabulary
 By Tony Hoagland
 
In the history of American speech,
he was born between “Dirty Commies” and “Nice Tits.”
 
He worked for Uncle Sam,
and married a dizzy gal from Pittsburgh with a mouth on her.
 
I was conceived in the decade
between “Far out” and “Whatever”;
 
at the precise moment when “going all the way”
turned into “getting it on.”
 
Sometimes, I swear, I can feel the idiom flying around inside my head
like moths left over from the Age of Aquarius.
 
Or I hear myself speak and it feels like I am wearing
a no-longer-groovy cologne from the seventies.
 
In those days I was always trying to get a rap session going
and he was always telling me how to clean out the garage.
 
Our last visit took place in a twilight zone of a clinic,
between “feeling no pain” and “catching a buzz.”
 
For that occasion I had carefully prepared
a suitcase full of small talk
 
–But he was already packed and going backwards,
with the nice tits and diry commies,
 
to the small town of his vocabulary,
somewhere outside of Pittsburgh.
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Writing prompt: What vocabulary did your father (or mother) use? Try writing a poem based on that vocabulary.