Name: __________________________
Identifying Figurative Language
Directions: Read the lines of poetry.  Figure out which technique is being used: idiom, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or personification.  It is possible more than one technique is being used.  In the boxes, explain in your own words what is meant by the lines. Try your best to interpret the meaning. Slashes represent line breaks.  

1. Example - There’s a faucet in the basement / that had dripped one drop all year 
since he fixed it, we can’t find it / without wearing scuba gear.

What technique is being used? _______Hyperbole___________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.        The line is saying that someone made the sink worse while trying to fix it.

2.  Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines / Diggin' in my own back yard.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

3.  Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave / I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

4.  The daisy hugging the earth / in August, ha!

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

5.  Don’t worry about the Alex / She’s all bark and no bite.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

6.  Endless wealth, / I thought, / held out its arms to me.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.
	
7.  A thousand Paradises / in an apple blossom.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

8.  Cause I walk like I've got oil wells / Pumping in my living room.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

9.  After getting my report card / I knew it was time to hit the books.  

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

10.  Floors are flowers – take a few / Ferns grow here and daisies too.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

11.  An old willow with hollow branches / slowly swayed his few high tendrils / and sang:

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

12.  I should have done homework or studied instead / But I got up on the wrong side of the bed.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

13. There’s a guy in a tux and he stands in the corner, / Feedin’ the jukebox his dimes.  

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.
	
14. I pushed him from my arms / his stare brought with a terror through / a million billion trillion stars.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

15.   a flower / a weakest flower / shall be our trust

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

16.  I am Super Samson Simpson / I’m superlatively strong / I like to carry elephants / I do it all day long.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

17. As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men. / Young men sharp as mustard.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

18. Love is something else, / or so I thought it, / a garden which expands,

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

19. It is the mind / the mind / that must be cured / short of death's intervention,

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

20.  I guess that my friends were just pulling my leg.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.
	
21.  One day they hold you in the / Palms of their hands, gentle, as if you / Were the last raw egg in the world.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

22. a blessing in disguise.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

23. Love is a young green willow / shimmering at the bare wood's edge.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

24.  If no one came to try it / the world / would be the loser.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

25.  The whole world / became my garden!

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

26.  There’s a blue bird in my heart that / wants to get out / but I’m too tough for him, / I say, stay in there, I’m not going  / to let anybody see you.

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.

27.  I wanted her to show up / I crossed my fingers.  

What technique is being used? ___________________________________________________________
Idiom, Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
Figure out what is meant:
Write a sentence explaining the meaning.