Kill the Cliche!!!!!

The following paragraph is full of cliches.  Re-write the paragraph to eliminate the cliche--remember specifics, the concrete, and the unexpected or strange are great weapons against cliche. 

In this day and age, good teachers are few and far between. My deepest, darkest secret is my desire to be one of those teachers - one that is worth her weight in gold, who works her fingers to the bone, hand in hand with students to prepare them to meet the trials and tribulations of life.

It's all about Tone!

Pick a tone (a mood or feeling).  Then, give an example of something that reflects your tone for the following categories:

1. Clothing
2. Song
3. Movie
4. Book
5. Food
6. City
7. Hairstyle
8. Color

For example, if I chose "pathetic" as my tone, I might say:

1. Mumu
2. Ryan Adam's "Rock n Roll"
3. "Sideways"
4. Maggie Nelson's "Bluets"
5. Leftover baloney
6. Detroit
7. Mullet
8. Puce

Remember that "tone" is different from "theme"--don't pick a movie about "happiness" for example, but a movie that FEELS happy.

Break A Line or Two (or Three or Fifiy)

Choose TWO of the line breaks in the following poem and explain how they work well in the poem, or why you like them, or how they make us understand the poem differently.

Absence

I have scarcely left you
When you go in me, crystalline,
Or trembling,
Or uneasy, wounded by me
Or overwhelmed with love, as
when your eyes
Close upon the gift of life
That without cease I give you.

My love,
We have found each other
Thirsty and we have
Drunk up all the water and the
Blood,
We found each other
Hungry
And we bit each other
As fire bites,
Leaving wounds in us.

But wait for me,
Keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too
A rose. 

Pablo Neruda