Cabinet of Clichés
By Jenna Larson
Throughout the semester, we have been reflecting on failure and an artist’s inherent need for perfection. For too long, I have viewed failure as something to avoid and resent rather something to learn from. No one improves on anything without the occasional failure, especially in art. As a writer, I always hope to stand out, or at least apart, from other writers. I want my original voice to shine through and make an impact. In writing and sharing my work, it is clear to see that it is difficult for your voice to stand out when you don’t know it yet. So much of writing and art is trial and error. For every beautiful poem or story I’ve written, there have been countless ugly ones. The trick is realizing that those ugly ones were still worth writing. I wouldn’t be able to recognize my good work without my bad work. Although art is subjective and what I think is terrible might speak to someone else, I see my work getting more creative and sophisticated over time. That’s exactly why I decided to write the worst poem I could for my final project! After all, writing is about enjoyment and self expression, and if I constantly ignore that in trying to make something perfect, I’ll lose that curiosity that made me love writing in the first place. Maybe it’s the burnout, but at this point in the semester I’d rather make something less meaningful and silly than try to be so profound that I stress myself out. This poem feels like the perfect exercise in what not to do in poetry, which in a way says more about my skill set than other writings I’ve done. I am able to recognize what I enjoy in poetry and do well by doing the exact opposite. I thought a cabinet of clichés was one of the best ways to do so:
Cabinet of Clichés
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet
And so are you
The waves crash on the sand
The sun beats down
I can’t wait for us
To ditch this small town
We’ll drive away
At the speed of light
Fit as a fiddle
In the dark of the night
You’re a stroke of perfection
A diamond in the rough
You’ll be there for me
When things get tough
I’m there for you
When things get hard
When the cat has your tongue
And fear haunts you like a graveyard
While all that glitters isn’t gold
With every change in season
As autumn leaves start falling down
I’ll love you without reason
Every cloud has a silver lining
I feel it in my core
Time can heal all wounds
Though all is fair in love and war
Your hand I will hold
Come high water or hell
Working for what we love
All’s well that ends well.
We are broken.
We are cliché.
But we grow together,
Come what may.
The research component of this object came from looking up every cliché in the book. Every line or simile I’ve tried to avoid in the name of originality is combined in this piece. There’s a type of freedom that came with writing this. I got to be as uncreative and carefree as possible. A line has been used to death? I’ll throw that one in here. It was a piece I worked on over time, and I think that was primarily because of how much I try to avoid clichés, even though they’re technically present in my life. It was a challenge to let myself be free to make mistakes and not try to correct them. This poem has no punctuation anywhere which is one of my biggest pet peeves in poetry. Along with that, I chose a very simple and commonly used rhyme scheme. Poetry is not supposed to ignore the rules of grammar and sentence structure just because it’s poetry, but to use and work with those rules to make a greater impact. However, writing this made me realize maybe it isn’t so wrong to ignore the rules and focus on what inspires you rather than what people say is good poetry.