Avoid Cliches like the Plague or
How to Drive Your English Teacher Batshit
Alice N. Persons

Don’t Be a Stranger
Use a lot of trite-and-true expressions.
If it sounds vaguely familiar, throw it in.
Its alright, you’re teacher can handle it –
she may have to lay down
or have a cold beer
after reading a stack of papers —
bad writing has that affect on her —
but she can deal.
Thats what they pay her the big bucks for.
Your probably going to pass this class
even though writting is not your favorit thing.

O to be nineteen years old,
master of video game, iPod,
a tiny, complicated cell phone,
all things electric —
but mostly a stranger to those low-tech
blocks of paper
called books
and not to recognize
or have any interest in purging
the many clichés
sprinkled threwout your paper.
like flies in the gravy.
That was a simile, but don’t worry.
it won’t be on the quiz

___________________________________________

Oh how I love this poem … almost perfectly.  Ms. Persons’ lament is mine … almost totally. 

Except I do have a cell phone, an iPod, even video games.  And while it’s clear as mud that grammar skills have, indeed, taken a dive, I still read and read and read those blocks of paper like there was no tomorrow.  And use clichés only ocasionly.

That was a simile, a cliche and a misspelling all in one.  But don’t worry.  It won’t be on the quiz. 😉

Alice N. Persons at Wikipedia.  And she’s very pretty.