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A Turn of Phrase [1]

Poetry [2]
3.8.22

“Poets are supposed to avoid clichés—bits of language so hackneyed as to seem drained of meaning—but I’m fascinated by what hyper-familiar turns of phrase can reveal and conceal,” writes Hannah Aizenman about her poem “As a Father of Daughters [3],” published in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series. The poem uses the phrase in the title as a jumping-off point for a seemingly associative list that hinges on the levity of rhyme and continues to reveal more about the original phrase. “As a failure of rathers / As a faithful support / As we gather together / As a fear of disorder,” writes Aizenman. Write a poem inspired by a common phrase or idiom that challenges its meaning. What will be revealed or concealed?


Source URL:https://www.pw.org/content/a_turn_of_phrase

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/content/a_turn_of_phrase [2] https://www.pw.org/genre/poetry [3] https://poets.org/poem/father-daughters