Simile Poetry Prompts
Quick answer: Simile poetry prompts: 14 original exercises for writing comparisons with like and as that surprise, plus advice on precision, distance and revision.
Similes get treated as the metaphor's timid cousin, and that is unfair. The little hinge of 'like' or 'as' is not weakness; it is precision. A simile admits the two things are separate and then insists on the resemblance anyway, which lets a poet reach across huge distances safely. Burns could say his love was like a red, red rose because 'like' held the comparison steady. Remove the hinge and the same line becomes a claim you must defend for the whole poem.
The honest problem with similes is laziness of the second term. 'Cold as ice' and 'quiet as a mouse' are not images anymore, just verbal furniture. The fix is distance plus accuracy: the further apart the two things are, the more electricity crosses the gap, provided the resemblance is genuinely exact. These prompts push you toward far-fetched but true.
The Prompts
For every prompt, one rule applies: if you have heard the comparison before, you may not use it. Reach past the first three similes that occur to you; those belong to everybody.
How to Use These
Warm up with volume. Before starting any prompt, set five minutes on a timer and write fifteen similes for one ordinary object in sight, a lamp, a shoe, a mug. The first five will be dreadful, and that is the exercise working: dreadful must be emptied out before strange arrives. Then take your chosen prompt and draft the poem, keeping every simile in for now, even the wobbly ones.
Revision is where similes earn their keep. Test each one with two questions: is the resemblance exact, and does the second term bring its own atmosphere the poem wants? A simile can be accurate and still wrong, since comparing a christening to a job interview is exact but imports a chill you may not intend. Cut until only similes that pass both tests remain, and never let two similes sit in one line unless the collision is the point.
What poets can take from this
- Reach past your first three comparisons; they are everyone's first three.
- Make the two things distant but the resemblance exact.
- Check what atmosphere the second term smuggles in besides the resemblance.
- Limit yourself to one simile per line and a handful per poem.
- Turn your best simile of a draft into the poem's title and see what changes.
Try it yourself
Write a poem called 'Like', in which someone who has just received enormous news, good or bad, keeps failing to finish the sentence 'It feels like', and each abandoned simile brings the reader one step closer to the news itself, which is never stated.
Questions
What makes a good simile in poetry?
Distance and accuracy together. The two things compared should be far apart, so the link surprises, yet the resemblance should be so exact the reader nods. 'Quiet as a held breath before a result' works because the quiet is genuinely that kind of quiet.
Can a poem have too many similes?
Easily. Each simile asks the reader to leave the scene and visit the second term, and too many trips exhaust attention. Most short poems support two or three strong similes. If every line has one, the comparisons start cancelling each other out.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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