The Evolution of Metaphor Dice

Prior to 2016 poet and teacher Taylor Mali often used a common activity in his poetry workshops in which students picked one word from three different lists to cobble together a metaphor like “love is a painful blessing” or “my father is a broken mirror.” One day he came up with the idea of having the students make dice out of paper. It was a huge hit, but it took too long. And that was the day that Metaphor Dice as a physical product was born.

paper dice

Flash forward several years, and there is now a new set of Metaphor Dice comprising slightly more challenging words (the Erudite Expansion), blank stickers for adding your own words, and an app for iOS. You can also take a virtual Metaphor Dice workshop with Taylor Mali himself.