Task 14: Simile Poem

Last time it was metaphors. And what an amazing collection you produced between you - with some of the most memorable lines of poetry I have ever read. Honestly.

Now let's see how you do with metaphor's slippery cousin: the SIMILE.

Once we've got over the basic spelling mistake many of you still make (this technique is NOT a SMILE!!!!!), there is much more to the simile than meets the eye...

My son, who is on the autistic spectrum, has always found similes easy. It is metaphors which have long confused him; he thinks of them as lies. If you write, for example, "Stress is a beast", this is nothing short of a lie. Stress is NOT a "beast"; it is a neuro-psychological reaction where the chemical balances in your body shift in response to an external or internal trigger or stimulus. Whereas a "beast" is a synonym for an animal (i.e. not a human).

A simile-reliant approach to this sentence is much more 'honest': "Stress is like a beast". Now there is something much harder to argue with. "Stress" and "beasts" share some subtle characteristics.

But I reckon it is the ease with which any of us can write a simile that can make so many similes pretty dull and ordinary. (Just as it is the challenge of writing a metaphor which, whilst much more difficult, makes for a much more special linguistic creation in the end.)

So the challenge this week is not just to write some similes - ANYONE can do that. The challenge this week is to write similes which are ORIGINAL and to write them in an original WAY.

To help you, I would like you to read the most recent Poem of the Week on the Fast Track BLOG. It is a poem by performance-poet (and Bard of Luton), John Hegley.

Read the poem several times, each time focusing on something different.

1. Read it aloud, until you have rehearsed (and perfected) a performance of the poem. Do you notice anything interesting about the way he has written it?
2. Now look at the similes: do you understand them all? Which are your favourite? Do they fall into different categories? Which of them are the most humorous? And the darkest?
3. Next, look carefully at his use of rhyme. See if you can map out the rhyme scheme he uses. How easy do you find this? Look at how the rhyme scheme seems to shift every few lines, as one rhyme is lost within the middle of a word, whilst the end of the same word becomes the source of the next rhyme.
4. Finally, look at the rhythm. See how he starts with a very simple, iambic pentameter (indeed that is the meter to which he returns several times throughout the poem). But notice how he deviates massively from this rhythm - in Line 3, and also in the respective lines about Arthur, Noddy and the "broadest bean" on the plate. And elsewhere he slips into a totally different rhythm altogether - like in the syllable-crowded 'calendar/colander' lines, or the syllable-sparse 'marrow/narrow' ones.

Now, hopefully, you have looked closely at the poem for all these things. Before you move on, read the poem aloud one final time - ideally to a friend or a family member - and really relish the performance itself.

Now Task 14. Your very own Simile Poem.

1. Choose your verb: need; hate; love; want; or anything else you can think of really.
2. Then think of a handful of similes, and use each as the starting point for a new section.
3. Next, you can add some other, rhyming similes to each section to complete it.
4. Now try playing with your rhyme and rhythm, looking at Hegley's poem for inspiration.
5. If you wish, you can follow the same structure as my attempt below (but you don't have to, and it would be nice to see some of you experiment with your own form and structure):

• Each stanza = 3 sets of 3 rhyming pentameters
• There are two 'bridging' rhyming couplets between each section - each in tetrameters.
• And I have 3 stanzas - one on need; one on want; and one on love.

The result: a simile poem which is anything but ordinary - and, above all, in which you play around and experiment to your heart's content with RHYTHM and with RHYME.

And if you're wondering if this is supposed to be a difficult task? Of course it is. This is wordvoodoo after all. (But remember I'm only too happy to help you with a first draft if you get really stuck.)

Deadline (for those of you interested in such things!) = midnight on Saturday 3rd November. :)

And, as always, here's my attempt:

I need you like a vagrant needs a bench
I need you like a soldier needs a trench
I need you like febreze requires a stench
so it can show how well it masks it
Like a corpse requires a casket
I need you like a creek needs a paddle
I need you like a horse needs a saddle
I need you like a jockey needs to straddle
so he can show how well he rides
Like seven brothers need some brides
I need you like a sewer needs faeces
Like a genus needs a species
Like an iron needs some creases
I need you.

I want you like the ostrich wants to fly
I want you like the scraper wants the sky
I want you like an onion wants to fry
So it can show how good it tastes
Like belts want waists
I want you like a sinner wants remorse
I want you like a cuckold wants divorce
I want you like a sperm wants intercourse
So it can show how well it swims
Like churches want hymns
I want you like an oven wants heat
I want you like a bone wants meat
I want you like the chaff wants the wheat
I want you.

I love you like a bully loves to hurt
I love you like Courtney Love loved Kurt
I love you like a hoover loves its dirt
So it can show how well it sucks
Like lakes love ducks
I love you like a library loves a book
I love you like a copper loves a crook
I love you like a salmon loves a hook
So it has something to avoid
Like a vacuum loves a void
I love you like a vintner loves a grape
I love you like a curtain loves to drape
I love you like my daughter loves sellotape
I love you

And I'll come back to this and try some more in due course...

Oh, and if you haven't done so already, have a listen to John Hegley performing his poem, 'Jesus Isn't Only For Christmas' by clicking here... :)