Find an object with some words on it. Preferably a kitschy one. If you don’t have one to hand, consider popping into your nearest Goodwill or antique store or gift shop that sells reprehensibly cheaply made calendars. (The best part is you don’t even need to buy the thing, just see the words on it. But if it’s a small shop maybe consider supporting them, especially if you find a cute embroidered pillow or can’t-leave-without-it button.) The point is to find some words from this object that either directly are, or that flirt with, cliché. Preferably choose the biggest howler you can find, something you couldn’t imagine putting in a poem with a straight face. Then, even if you have to modify or fragment or abecedarianize or whatever those too-banal-to-handle words, write a poem with them in it. (Bonus points if they end the poem.)

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Tom Snarsky (he/him) is the author of Light-Up Swan and Reclaimed Water (Ornithopter Press), A Letter From The Mountain & Other Poems (Animal Heart Press), and MOUNTEBANK (Broken Sleep Books). His chapbook Tired Light is forthcoming from Thirty West Publishing House in October. He lives in the mountains of northwestern Virginia with his wife Kristi and their cats.