Poem Prompt 2 - Refreshing Cliché

Clichés abound in our spoken language though, generally, in poetry we tend to avoid them, unless, for example, we're using them deliberately in a persona poem to suggest character. The use of cliché, in this case, can serve to strengthen the reader's belief in the speaker. The use of cliché, or over familiar language, elsewhere can suggest that the poet hasn't worked hard enough to find their own way to express an idea and has fallen back on a communal 'shorthand'.

The American poet, Kay Ryan, consciously works with clichés and familiar expressions, often taking one as the title of a poem and freshening it in some way for the reader. She might 'interpret' it, or explore an idea behind it, usually with brevity (lots of her poems are less than 14lines long) and always with precision, lyricism and wit. I highly recommend her book The Niagara River.

In the following poem she explores the phrase 'green behind the ears', the ideas of youth, innocence, and nostalgia. Read this for inspiration and then, working with your own chosen familiar expression, explore the ideas behind it in a poem of not more than 14 lines.

Off the top of my head, the following clichés/phrases come to mind, but brainstorm for your own list too:

one volunteer is better than ten pressed men
don't count your chickens
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
sly as a fox
pretty in pink
dead men don't talk


Green Behind the Ears

I was still slightly
fuzzy in shady spots
and the tenderest lime.
It was lovely, as I
look back, but not
at the time. For it is
hard to be green and
take your turn as flesh.
So much freshness
to unlearn.

Kay Ryan
from The Niagara River
Grove Press New York 2005

Buy it at The Book Depository.