Free Write with Usha Akella

  • Friday, July 09, 2021
  • 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
  • Digital Village

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FREE

Free Write with Usha Akella
Similes and Metaphors


Similes and Metaphors are the tendons in a poem. Poems that catch our eye invariably shine due to a poet’s ability to invent striking comparisons between objects. Original and striking metaphor-making or simile-invention is a distinctive feature of a poet’s imagination. Different poets exert this figurative device differently in different measure. And knowingly or unknowingly we are aware of this essence. When Roberts Burns compares love to a red rose or Emily Dickinson compares hope to a feathered thing we respond organically to these images a they drawn out a similarity, define, highlight and even reveal the nature of a thing profoundly.

Though both are defined as drawing comparisons, the difference between the two has often been simplified as only the use of the word ‘like’ or ‘as’.  In this workshop, we will explore the difference between metaphors and similes, work at exercises to learn how to construct both and read poems to understand how metaphors and similes can accentuate a poem by suggestion or extension.


Usha Akella has authored six books that include poetry and musical dramas. Her newest book, I will not bear you sons is published by Spinifex Press, Australia in 2021. She earned an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge, UK. She is the founder of Matwaala, first South Asian Diaspora Poets Festival in the US (www.matwaala.com and hosts www.the-pov.com, an interview and conversations website.