How to Use Figurative Language in Your Writing

In Emily Dickinson’s “Hope Is a Thing With Feathers,” the poet famously compares hope to an endlessly singing bird that “perches in the soul.” This is an example of figurative language—a category that includes literary devices like similes, metaphors, and hyperbole—which you can use to express meaning, evoke emotion, make direct comparisons, and create vivid images in readers’ minds.