…describe the world around you

As well as metre and rhyme, poets have lots of ways of using words to create images.

Onomatopoeia refers to words that sound like the thing they are describing, such as ‘buzz’ or ‘whoosh’.

Things that aren’t living creatures can be described as doing things that only humans can do (saying that the sun smiled on us, for example) – this is called personification.

When two things are compared, saying one is ‘like’ or ‘as’ another, this is called a simile:

Eyes all sticky like honey on bees
(Wale: ‘Chillin’)

A metaphor is very similar to a simile, but instead of using ‘like’ or ‘as’, the poet talks about one thing in terms of another:

I hang my hopes out on the line
Will they be ready for you in time?
If you leave them out too long
They’ll be withered by the sun.
(LaRoux: ‘In For The Kill’)

So here the writer is talking about hope but in terms of hanging out the washing. We can’t really hang hopes out on the line because they’re not physical things, but we have a picture of waiting for someone to come along – only for things to be spoiled if we wait too long.