Cliché Poem
We all love clichés, those vivid, wonderful, overused phrases. Well, we certainly must, because we use them like there’s no tomorrow! These days you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one! So what should we do, just avoid them like the plague? No! Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let’s have some fun with clichés. Go ahead and let it out now, in hopes that we will begin to take them at face value and see them for what they are. Then maybe we can wash our hands of them,once and for all.
Your job is to create a one-page poem that uses a cliché as its first line. Clichés are everywhere, so finding one should be like falling off a log. Once you have your first line (e.g., “My life is an open book”), then you will take that image and continue it as an extended metaphor all the way through the poem.
This poem does not have to rhyme, but it certainly may if that’s your fancy. Just have fun with these! After all, variety is the spice of life!
Some sample clichés to get you started:
The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I move to the beat of a different drummer.
Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.
If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
There’s no use crying over spilled milk.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
I’m waiting for my ship to come in.
Slow and steady wins the race.
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Wake up and smell the coffee!
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
This is the first day of the rest of your life.
No pain, no gain.
If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
Be careful what you wish for.
Love makes the world go round.
SONNET 130
William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
“Time Bomb”
by The Dismemberment Plan
Well I…I am a time bomb and I…
I lay forgotten at the bottom of your heart.
I’m fine…
Ticking away the hours to blow your world apart
I…I am a poison and I…
I am still coursing through your bloodstream like a ghost
Like wine.
Gathering vintage for the day I hurt the most
I…I am a land mine and I…
I lay on the soil burned out by battles you thought you'd won.
I’ve got time...
To wait for the footsteps
Of a memory that's on the run...
Well I...I am a tar pit and I...
Swell like a living thing all at the slightest touch.
A black grime, yeah, swallowing everything...
A cold and timeless clutch.
I...Well I am a tripwire, and I...
I'm stretching across the road you're barreling down tonight.
As thin as twine...
Waiting to be released right beyond
your sight.
I...Well I am a fault line and I...
I'm pulling apart the ground that lay beneath your newest seed.
So fine...
I'm moving in inches now...
I'm crawling, I'm cutting, I'm cleaving like a knife
Well I...I am a time bomb and I...
I only live in that one moment in which you die.
It's not right,
It's not what I wanted then
But you know and i know there's no going back.
I...I am a lost soul and I...
I send out a sickened light up for anyone to see.
A cry for help, yeah.
A warning to stay away
The burning, the blinding, the reaching in deadness
IDIOM POSTER
Idioms are everywhere: That iPod costs an arm and a leg! Give me a break! Oh, put a sock in it! So, do we literally have to give up one arm and one leg to get an iPod? Should we actually give someone a break?! Do I really have to eat a sock?! No, of course not. We understand what these expressions mean, because they are part of our language (IDIOM comes from the Latin word IDIOMA, which means LANGUAGE). An idiom is an expression that we do not take literally.
Your job is to make a poster (a small poster) in which you:
- Depict the figurative meaning of an idiom (that is, what we KNOW it means) with some kind of picture
- Depict the literal meaning of an idiom (what it APPEARS to mean) with some sort of picture
- Illustrate the poster. You are NOT graded on artistic talent.
This poster should be no bigger than a regular sheet of printer paper (8.5” x 11”) and should show BOTH meanings on the same side. (These are going up around the room, and if you do it on two sides, one side will be covered.) That means you need to split the paper in half somehow and dedicate one half to the literal meaning and the other side to the figurative. Have fun with this assignment, and be creative!
IDIOMS YOU CAN’T USE BECAUSE TOO MANY PEOPLE USE THEM:
-Any idioms listed on the front or back of this sheet
-“Raining cats & dogs”
-“Cat’s got your tongue”
-“Piece of cake”
-“Break a leg”
Check out for a great list of idioms, listed alphabetically. I am looking for the funniest, most unique, or most interesting idioms you can find. Don’t settle for the easy ones! You’ll learn funny new phrases.
Write your best metaphor or simile for extra credit!
A good simile or metaphor is a wonderful thing. It has been said that figurative language is language that turns an ear into an eye. In other words, a great description can help us see the image brilliantly. For extra credit any time this trimester, you may do the following assignment:
1. Write the best metaphor or simile you can possibly think of. It can be about anything you want. Illustrate it, make it look beautiful, but make sure it’s a REALLY STRONG description.
2. Then, try to come up with the funniest metaphor or simile you can possibly think of. It, too, can be about anything, but try to be as clever as you can. Here are 25 really funny examples to get you started. Don’t copy any of these!
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
26. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.