Remember back in the day when you asked your teacher for a simile poem, and she gave you a condescending look and said there’s no such thing. Well, there is, literally, a simile poem or, more accurately, a poem called “Simile” by N. Scott Momaday.
Here’s a lesson plan: Examples of Figurative Language in Poetry
Mastering Poems with Similes
This guide to mastering similes is as useful as a high-powered magnet in a grain silo. The poetry master should be able to do the following.
- Define simile: Give the definition. A simile is the comparison between two unlike things using like or as. This step can be accomplished by anybody willing to spend the 4 minutes necessary for memorization.
- Identify similes: Good, but it still falls short of mastery.
- Interpret similes: Explaining why the author chooses a particular simile and what effect it has on the poem’s theme makes one nearly a master of simile.
- Use similes: Being able to use similes to convey more clearly a specific message means mastery.
“Simile” by N.Scott Momaday
Poem: “A Simile” by N. Scott Momaday
What did we say to each other
that now we are as the deer
who walk in single file
with heads high
with ears forward
with eyes watchful
with hooves always placed on firm ground
in whose limbs there is latent flight
Simile: The entire poem is a simile. Line 2 contains the comparison “and we are like the deer” and the rest of the poem describes in what manner his people are like the deer.
Analysis: Momaday writes of the fate of Native Americans, having himself grown up on the Kiawa Indian reservation. The deer is portrayed as submissive, yet noble, able to break forth without warning.