Similies

[wcc-curtis]

I like this simile by Sylvia Plath. The poem is called Mirror. The following comparison is between a lake and the terrible consequences of aging:

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

[Dreamwoven]

An interesting collection of poems. "The Road not taken" and "If you forget me" also touched me...

[ennison]

The spelling of the plural is similes. It is an oddity of humanity and of language that we seek always to compare, to look for similarity. E E Cummings was great at that. So was Laurie Lee. So are/ were thousands of other writers/ talkers. It is what humans do. Plath I do not like.

[wcc-curtis]

I'm reading a book called Models for Writers: Short Essays for Composition. There is an essay named The Death of Benny Paret. Paret was a boxer who died in the ring. The essay was written by Norman Mailer.

The following quote describes one of the boxers pummeling his opponent: "...the right hand whipping like a piston rod which has broken through the crankcase..."

[Adonais]

like a terrible fish

Rather banal, don't you think? A good poem but for that.


My favourite simile is in the Odyssey, at the start of book 20, when Odysseus is sleeping on a bed of raw ox-hide outside the suitors' hall, while his enemies feast and cavort inside:

"His rage, held hard in leash, submitted to his mind,
while he himself rocked, rolling from side to side,
as a cook turns a sausage, big with blood
and fat, at a scorching blaze, without a pause,
to broil it quick: so he rolled left and right,
casting about to see how he, alone,
against the false outrageous crowd of suitors
could press the fight."

Just so bizarre and wonderfully inventive. Homer is the best for similies.

[ennison]

Am****inmazing Great!

[wcc-curtis]

In an analysis of The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway, there are extensive parallels between the infection in Harry’s leg and the metaphorical “infection” of his writing talents. Essentially, the decaying of his writing skills is like an infection.