Howdy, Campers!
When I wrote a poem about my sister and me bathing our dog, Peanuts, I used the metaphor of war; there’s a war image in each stanza. See if you can pick out which are similes and which are metaphors:
BATH
My sister and I are pushing a big aluminum tub
across our brick patio to the grass
sounding like a tank rolling towards war.
I hold the hose and she turns the spigot.
Water thunders into the tub like a drum roll,
filling it up.
Searching,
We find him trembling behind bushes,
camouflaged.
We pull our prisoner across the yard,
his head down,
his paws gripping the passing grass;
then, my sister, because she is older,
lifts him above the tub…
and with a long sigh, he surrenders.
This poem was included in the book, Poems for Brothers, Poems for Sisters selected by Myra Cohn Livingston (Holiday House, 1988).
Go into your bathroom. Could a bar of soap be a smooth stone? Could the bathtub be a cooking pot…and whoever is taking a bath be part of the stew? What could a toothbrush…or a wet washcloth be?
