Londongrey

A cliche, the fixed or stereotyped expression which has lost significance through frequent repetition - Webster Dictionary.


It is with some annoyance that the 'cliche' seems to be the main way new writers express themselves. More specifically in poetry. My scratched record critiques in the forum all point to one thing, the use of a cliche is lazy writing. Look at the definition above, is there any excuse for it? No.

How do you identify a cliche?

If you have heard it a thousand times before, then it probably is a cliche. If a word or phrase does not sound fresh or new, then it is probably a cliche.

Is your word and phrase choice generic?

Does your poetry speak of your heart, your love and your hate?

'You always love me in special ways'. There is one cliche and one abstraction in this sentence. The cliche is 'love' and the abstraction is 'special'. What is 'special'? Would you rather not describe what is special in something the senses could detect. By that I mean something you can see, touch, smell or taste. Something concrete.

The use of a cliche often implies that the writer has no idea what they are talking about. If you do not have a good idea how someone is 'special' then should you really be writing about it before you have thought about it? Does it not deny what a writer does?

The use of a cliche is inexcusable in writing. Especially within poetry. It shows a lack of understanding of your subject and shows no respect to the reader. Why share such self-aborption?

Constant vigilance!!!

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Londongrey

Other ways of staying clear of cliche and abstraction:

USING GRAMMAR

abstract noun - The clue is in the name. Nouns which describe or denote something that is not physical, hisotry, beauty, happiness, absence.

Compare the above with a:

concrete noun - A noun which describes something physical that can be touched i.e. cat, brick or sister.

In poetry, you can use the following to bring more detail to an object, place or action. This allows more emotion to be evoked in the reader when used properly, as it can imply a detail which otherwise may be overlooked initially but may be important to the piece as a whole:

adjectival - This is the label you give to any word or phrase which modifies a Noun i.e. my gold-rimmed cup, the baroque wall sconce.

Detail is the most important thing in poetry, as well as the description being in the singular. It is better when starting to learn about poetry to try and desrcibe one thing, rather than a group. i.e:

'The hill rose from a heather mattress,
a barnacle rock blistered from its side.'

This is a far more evocative description than:

'The hills rose from the brown mat,
the rocks burst like blisters from its side.'

This is a good thing to remember if you are trying to evoke a powerful image, whilst still allowing your reader the freedom to imagine. The first example is particular, the second is generic.

With the use of different grammatical tools, you can create poetry that is more evocative than just by simply using a cliche or abstract word or phrase. You have to prove that you have looked at, and thought about your subject before putting pen to paper.

It is not for a writer to make the reader do all the work, you do the work to provide the reader with the emotional response that you want. To do that, you must use the right language and construct so that there is only one interpretation, yours, the writer's interpretation.

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You are only as dull as the light in the room you occupy, everything else is just hearsay - Me, about five minutes ago.

Avarice

um... are you asking people for their opinions on cliches or are you having a conversation with yourself?

Londongrey

This is the Writing Tips and Advice forum, hence we leave advice in it.

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You are only as dull as the light in the room you occupy, everything else is just hearsay - Me, about five minutes ago.

mammamaia

all worth saying, alex... especially that last paragraph...

i'm bored to tears with folks who think poetry has to be so obscure that anyone can make anything at all out of any 'poem'...

the best poets of all time wrote poems that had clear, easily-accessible meaning... no one has to try to figure out what homer or shakespeare or poe meant... or frost, whitman, or angelou... or any of the many other greats...

if folks want to write poetry as a hobby and keep it to themselves, then anything goes... but, if they want to write poems for others to read, i sure wish they'd study the art first and learn at least the basics of the writer's craft, along with how to distinguish between a real poem and greeting card ditties or stream of consciousness gobbledygook...

a good poem will have a universal theme and not be just a personal 'poor me' pity party in rhyme [or not]... and a good poem will be 'crafted' not just spewed out and left as is, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not...

basta!... sorry to ramble on... it's a subject i could deliver a day-long lecture on, if allowed...

hugs, maia

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Londongrey

Thanks mammamaia,

I am tired of giving the same critiques. There are only so many you can do that say the same thing, how long does it take?

A xxxx

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You are only as dull as the light in the room you occupy, everything else is just hearsay - Me, about five minutes ago.

Londongrey

Where are my manners,

Thanks also go to mammamaia for helping me to revise this thread and sorting out my spelling!!!

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You are only as dull as the light in the room you occupy, everything else is just hearsay - Me, about five minutes ago.

mammamaia

silly boy!... i did it by pm, so nobody would know you goofed... regardless, you're welcome, of course... hugs, m

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mswietek

I agree, London. I think cliches are something all new writers go through (and even those not so new), but its good to get out of the habit as quickly as possible. The first step in that is identifying them.

With poetry, the problem is more glaring. For one, with so fewer words in an average poem compared to a short story, any cliche stands out more.

I also think that most of us were brought up with the idea that poetry has to be "heightened" in some way. We have to write about Love and Death and Despair, otherwise its not Important(TM). Because poetry can only be about Important(TM) things.

So its you can't write poetry about feeling blah and lonely. You have to be gripped with Death(TM), Dispair(TM) and Hopelessness(TM) to the point of suicide. A poem about a wheelbarrow next to some chickens? Who would want to read that?

I share your concerns and was part of the motivation about the poem I posted (the one that's not about a horse).

Michael

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"Don't imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music, or that you can please the expert before you have spent at least as much effort on the art of verse as an average piano teacher spends on the art of music." - Ezra Pound

Londongrey

Thanks Michael,

I think this is a lesson unfortunately that not everyone gets or wants too.

Poetry is supposed to be inspirational, making the everyday inspirational in the whole point. Not making the grand boring to read because everyone is writing the same rubbish.

Le sigh

Alex

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You are only as dull as the light in the room you occupy, everything else is just hearsay - Me, about five minutes ago.

nae411

I am taking notes, furthermore I will be sending you my stuff to look over. (teasing) Very interesting points and I will definately work on no more cliches'. You are even adorable when you are teaching...


Nae ;0)

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Londongrey

Lol!!

You can send me your work, hell, I don't know anything about prose which is why I asked you!!

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You are only as dull as the light in the room you occupy, everything else is just hearsay - Me, about five minutes ago.

Jaideska

You bring up a very important and interesting point Lon.. you don't mind me calling you Lon do you? I'm one of those lazy writers jk.

Back to the point.

I do agree with the fact that (specifically in poetry) there are certain ideas, sentences, even forms that are being used over and over again to the point where you just want to give yourself a lead pipe lobotomy.



To be completely honest I've been had with cliche's myself, it's something that kind of happens behind the curtain sometimes.

Here you are writing away, thinking perhaps that your ideas are flowing well, seconds later you take another look at your peice and read something you've heard a thousand times before.

I'd like to perhaps suggest that there is an inherent tendency for cirtics to point out cliches that are otherwise not there.

In that sentence we can obviously take into account that the author is conveying the love being received by somone, however, if the idea is not particularly falling into a cliche would the sentence itself still carry the burden of that stamp? I wouldn't think so.

For example, if I am writing about my father who beat me when I was a child, and I'm using that sentence to characterise his violence toward me, it wouldn't count as a cliche would it?

"You've always held my hand so tight,
You've always told me what to say,
You've always loved me in a special way."

The reader may not concider the fact that the author is being facecious in light of the conditions presented in the peice, however vague those conditions may be.


I understand your point, and I know that even if you've targeted a small portion of any given poem (one that may not convey the enitre idea of the peice), that you're still trying to determine weither or not poems in general are cliches.

However I do believe that your descriptions of cliches are too definitive toward the insignificance of a single sentence.

I believe that the key behind cliches aren't particularly the sentence as much as the Idea behind it. (as shown earlier)

Again, I'll use my earlier example. I know you might be saying "Yeah but your example is a rare one." That still doesn't evade the fact that there are most likely critics who would have seen that particular sentence as being a cliche if they hadn't had the understanding of the idea behind it's presence.

Perhaps the use of a simple word such as "special" is not in the lack of inteligence, yet the idea of simplicity itself. Perhaps the author was trying to write in a simple way as to highlight the age of the character within the poem, or perhaps the vagueness was a way of hiding the true meaning of the rather sensitive subject.

To determine weither or not the "cliche" in question is truly a cliche is not an ability that a critic can subscribe to within the aspect of poetry.

I'll use a cliche to strengthen my point "[the meaning of poetry]... is in the eye of the beholder."

Sure, you can critique a peice and claim that certain sentences are cliches, but who is to say that the critic wasn't wrong?

Who's to say that in fact the entire idea behind the peice was original and fantastically written in such a subliminal manner that said critic lacked the observational skills to realise that said cliche was in fact a meaningfull addition to the body of the poem?

There are a thousand sides to every subject my friend, as much as I do agree with you, you can never be sure about what the writer is trying to convey.

Comments?

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Londongrey

What the writer is trying to convey and their intention has no bearing on whether a wrod or phrase is a cliche.

This is with regards to the construct of the poem not the content.

A critique is concerned with purely the construction of a piece of poetry not the content. The whole point of this is that without the proper construction then the content and intent of the poet is not clear.

Do not confuse content with construct. My definition of a cliche is very definitive, as it is a generic statement that has lost its significiance.

No amount of justification allows cliche in poetry to be considered anything but a cliche. It does ont strengthen a point, it makes it vague and unclear as the meaning is generic.

If you are not sure what a writer is trying to convey, then it is a bad piece of poetry.

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You are only as dull as the light in the room you occupy, everything else is just hearsay - Me, about five minutes ago.

Weretigress

What no one on this thread has yet mentioned (mainly because it focused on poetry) is the rampant use of cliches in prose, especially fantasy and sci-fi.

Of course, making conflict, characters, and other such things in stories like that can be difficult because at this point in history, almost everything can be read as cliche. Some are less cliche than others, of course (youth discovers he/she has magic powers, must fight the evil sorceror and save the world vs. something fairly unique with plot twists and such).

Still, in a way it's like drawing- someone once told me they'd seen a particular pose used before. I told her that, in essence, hadn't every pose been used somewhere before.

And geez, sometimes cliches sprout right form the subconscious. I was designing a character the other day, and suddenly realized halfway through that her weapons somewhat mimicked Freddy Kreugar's. Now, I only ever saw one Nightmare on Elm Street movie, and that was when I was much younger, yet that was instantly going to be the thing people would associate my character with....that put me right off writing for a week.

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