Kathy Fagan’s strategy in dealing with clichés follows the strategy we are often taught, to inject fresh language into and around the cliché in order to personalize the phrase. Fagan does this every couple of poems, even developing an entire poem off the phrase “a monkey on her back” (2) in "Womb To Tomb Pantoum." This use of clichés makes the diction of Fagan’s poetry very casual and familiar, but the personalization of the clichés makes the specific language pop out with originality. Fagan takes the phrase “’pretty on the inside’” (19)in reference to girls that aren’t stereotypically beautiful and lets it reference specifically “the ones” (19)in "'69." Moments like this make Fagan’s poetry comfortable to an American audience, yet intriguing. If for no other reason, I continue to read Fagan’s work just to absorb how she twists clichés and trite phrases. When you catch one in her work, you expect her to twist the language into something that feels familiar, yet looks brand new.
Script Folio 43 Split pomegranate, common rhinoceros beetle, Scarlet Turks='s cap lily folding back it's red lips while anthers circle the pistil's one hand: above them six lines are written in chancery script with lettere tagliate , letters cut like the long lines of pasta our parents cut on our plate, the work of two people who never met. The two halves of each letter--below and above-- are severed or sewn together by inked chain links like those that knot a fence or a stitch that unravels the whole length of a sentence if a stray thread is pulled--chain letter, chain gang, chain mail, chain saw-- or those paper links that wrap themselves around the Xmas tree: eentsy weentsy spider sidling up to each letter, each word, casting and binding in silk as if to ravel and unravel once felt the same. ---------------------------- Food Foods were eaten like the grossness our parents turned into freedom tickets away from the kitchen table, the alteration of rules we didn’t know exis...
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