The figurative language of Amy Krouse Rosenthal…

Reading time: Less than 1 minute

I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about personification from Amy Krouse Rosenthal…

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, an American children’s book author, memoirist and public speaker died of ovarian cancer this week in Chicago. She was 51.

I had never heard of Rosenthal until I read her heartbreaking New York Times essay headlined, “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” published March 3/17. Frankly, I think you should drop everything you’re doing right now and read it from start to finish.

But just in case you’re unable to do that, let me provide a list of highlights from the piece she presents as a Tinder advertisement for her husband who, she wrote, will soon need another wife.

  • The intermittent micronaps that keep whisking me away midsentence are clearly not propelling my work forward as quickly as I would like. But they are, admittedly, a bit of trippy fun.
  • No wonder the word cancer and cancel look so similar.
  • If our home could speak, it would add that Jason is uncannily handy. 
  • Here is the kind of man Jason is: He showed up at our first pregnancy ultrasound with flowers. This is a man who, because he is always up early, surprises me every Sunday morning by making some kind of oddball smiley face out of items near the coffeepot: a spoon, a mug, a banana.

The generosity of her spirit and the grace of her writing make me want to rush out and read everything else she’s ever written.

Scroll to Top