21. Symposium and Cliches

Paul Muldoon
Symposium

You can bring a horse to water but you can't make it hold
its nose to the grindstone and hunt with the hounds.
Every dog has a stitch in time. Two heads? You've been sold
one good turn. One good turn deserves a bird in the hand.

A bird in the hand is better than no bread.
To have your cake is to pay Paul.
Make hay while you can still hit the nail on the head.
For want of a nail the sky might fall.

People in glass houses can't see the wood
for the new broom. Rome wasn't built between two stools.
Empty vessels wait for no man.

A hair of the dog is a friend indeed.
There's no fool like the fool
who's shot his bolt. There's no smoke after the horse is gone.


from The New Yorker , October 2, 1995



I really enjoyed this poem from the packet. It was just kind of fun, right? I like how quickly you are pulled through it because the sayings are so comfortable, but I also don't know many of them, so I have some trouble comprehending the intent behind it. Despite that, though, I can really feel the sarcastic attitude radiating off of these lines. I get really sick of seeing obvious cliches in poems, and sayings such as the ones above aren't any better. I respect a poet that is able to use so many in a concntrated area, intentionally, and pull it off nicely. Both semesters that I have had Professor Parks she tried to get a number of us to write something with the prompt that related to making cliches real or answering the question, "What would the world be like if all cliched sayings weren't just sayings?" I've yet to succumb to the suggetion, but Paul Muldoon did a nice job of it.