Incomplete question. Here's the remaining part of the question and the poem:
In the following poem by Gregory Pardlo (published in 2007), the speaker describes watching children playing double Dutch-a version of jumping rope in which two ropes are turned in opposite directions.
Read the poem carefully. Write a paragraph in which you make a defensible claim regarding how Pardlo uses simile and metaphor to convey a complex image of the girls. In your paragraph, you should incorporate at least one piece of evidence from the text to support your claim .
"The girls turning double-dutch
bob & amp; weave like boxers pulling
punches, shadowing each other,
sparring across the slack cord
casting parabolas in the air. They
whip quick as an infant's pulse
and the jumper, before she
enters the winking, nods in time
as if she has a notion to share,
waiting her chance to speak. But she's
anticipating the upbeat
like a bandleader counting off
the tune they are about to swing into.
The jumper stair-steps into mid-air
as if she's jumping rope in low-gravity,
training for a lunar mission. Airborne a moment
long enough to fit a second thought in,
she looks caught in the mouth bones of a fish
as she flutter-floats into motion
like a figure in a stack of time-lapse photos
thumbed alive. Once inside,
the bells tied to her shoestrings rouse the gods
who've lain in the dust since the Dutch
acquired Manhattan. How she dances
patterns like a dust-heavy bee retracing
its travels in scale before the hive. How
the whole stunning contraption of girl and rope
slaps and scoops like a paddle boat.
Her misted skin arranges the light
with each adjustment and flex. Now heather-
hued, now sheen, light listing on the fulcrum
of a wrist and the bare jutted joints of elbow
and knee, and the faceted surfaces of muscle,
surfaces fracturing and reforming
like a sun-tickled sleeve of running water.
She makes jewelry of herself and garlands
the ground with shadows."
Step-by-step explanation:
Remember, a simile refers to a literary device that employs the use of comparisons of one thing or subject with another thing of a different kind using such as, "like" or "as".
While a metaphor refers to a literary device unlike a simile, makes comparisons between two things that are not exactly alike but do have something in common usually in a figurative sense.
For example, we notice the author's use of simile when he said,
"The girls turning double-dutch
bob & amp; weave like boxers pulling
punches,"
Here he compares the girl's physical activity of "turning jumping ropes" to literal "boxers pulling punches", making such seemingly simple/less strenuous activity look complex.