Name: ______Date: ______

Identifying Similes and Metaphors in Poetry

  1. Directions: Read the following poems and first identify whether they are similes or metaphors. Next,find the two things being compared in each line. That signal is “like” or “as”. In order for a line in poetry to be a simile or a metaphor you must first find the two things being compared. Remember they must be unlike things that would never be compared in the same sentence. Once you have found your things that are being compared see if “like” or “as” is in the middle of the two.
  2. If YES! Then you have a simile.
  3. If NO! Then you have a metaphor.

My Family Lives Inside A Medicine Chest


1. Dad is the super-size band-aid, strong and powerful
but not always effective in a crisis.
2. Mom is the middle-size tweezers,
which picks and pokes and pinches.
3. David is the single small aspirin on the third shelf,
sometimes ignored.
4. Muffin, the sheep dog, is a round cotton ball, stained and dirty,
that pops off the shelf and bounces in my way as I open the door.

SimileMetaphor

Explain your choice: ______

______

Find the two things being compared on each line and write them below:

1. ______

2. ______

3. ______

4. ______

Willow and Ginko

1. The willow is like an etching, fine-lined against the sky.2. The ginko is like a crude sketch, hardly worthy to be signed.

3. The willow's music is like a soprano, delicate and thin.
4. The ginko's tune is like a chorus, with everyone joining in.

5. The willow is sleek as a velvet-nosed calf;
6. The ginko is leathery as an old bull.
7. The willow's branches are like silken thread;
6. The ginko's like stubby rough wool.

8. The willow is like a nymph with streaming hair;
9. Wherever it grows, there is green and gold and fair.
10. The willow dips to the water, protected and precious,
11. Like the King's favourite daughter.

12. The ginko forces it's way through grey concrete, like a city child, it grows up in the street.
13. Thrust against the metal sky, somehow it survives and even thrives.

My eyes feast upon the willow,
But my heart goes to the ginko.

By Eve Merriam

SimileMetaphor

Explain your choice: ______

Find the two things being compared on each line and write them below:

1. ______

2. ______

3. ______

4. ______

5. ______

6. ______

7. ______

8. ______

9. ______

10. ______