Almost Cliche

Let's mess around with language again!

Hello, Haikuists!

Today we’re twisting cliches and playing with double meanings.

murder in the field
working case, searching for clues
turning over leaves

Almost Cliche

One thing I love about language is how flexible it is. In English, we have thousands of words with different meanings, and often you have to rely on the context to fully understand how a word is being used. We also have a “boatload” of cliches and idioms.

Typically, we’re taught to avoid using cliches in our writing. However, if you can put a twist on an idiom or cliche you can sharpen your writing.

Here are some ways songwriters have used double meanings or put twits on cliches:

It's the blind leading the blond

—If God Will Send his Angels, Bono & U2

Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes
—Cruel Summer, Taylor Swift

The specific poetic trick Taylor Swift uses here, and in a ton of other places in her work, is called antanaclasis. It means she uses the same word in a sentence or phrase multiple times, with the word having a different meaning each time.

In today’s haiku comic, I used murder to mean a group of crows, even though the construction of the first line would lead you to believe I meant it in the usual way. I then used the idiom, “turning over a new leaf” in the context of crows looking for clues by literally turning over leaves.

Haiku Prompt

Now, it’s your turn! Write a haiku where you use a word with multiple meanings or twist a cliche or idiom to make it pop. Feel free to use any format of haiku you want including the traditional 5-7-5 format or free verse.

Please share your poems in the comments for all of us to enjoy!

Be the poetry you want to see in the world!

Cheers,

Jason

P.S. While writing this post I kept thinking of Sue Clancy and

A.M. Sketching

. Sue has a beautiful fine art exhibit called Figures of Speech, which you can see some of here.