The Cruelest Month Poem by Chen-ou Liu

occupied
with the blank space
when words fail...
on my attic window
April rain pattering


It was a writing class held at a Toronto branch library. The teacher discussed the four key elements of a story: setting, conflict, climax, and resolution. Half jokingly, he said out loud, 'That's almost an acronym: sucker.' He drew our attention to all sorts of sharp acronyms derived from his words of wisdom, and ended the class with a warning: be aware of clichés.

A loud voice from the back of the room, 'the writer is a cliché-sucker who spills out a string of little gems.' Silence descended over the room as if bats had just flown out of a cave in a big, snaking cloud. And the rain started to pour...