Jody Azzouni

Jody's Notes

Sometime early in my adolescence, I decided never to utter a cliché; always put it fresh (or not say it at all). I hadn't read Pound then; it was some view I'd picked up somehow or cobbled together that saying old stuff was bad for the brain. Years later, something else hit me as possibly fun to do, as something I wanted to try in poems. Use clichés deliberately, but twist them up in some way. It always caused trouble, my poems that did stuff like that. That's a cliché, someone would point out to me. (Which was puzzling: why didn't this person realize I knew this?) Yes? I'd say in response. And? I'd add. To signal that there had to be more to say about this. But most poets didn't think they had to say anything more, like using a cliché was by definition bad. Like you can't use certain materials in jewelry. No matter what. Or  say that in front of certain people. Some poets even think certain words should always be avoided in poetry. Like "Grandma," or "supercilious," or "whatever."

Why isn't this as silly as saying?: certain colors. That color. It's never to be used in a painting. In art. Never never never.

Blueprints, by the way. There are no such things anymore, architects tell me. Some of them miss the blueprints they used to work with. So do I.

I republished this poem in The Lust for Blueprints, and took the title of the collection from that line in this poem. It wasn't my idea. I wanted to use "squashed winter in a box," a line from a different poem in that collection. But a friend of mine jumped up and down and castigated me (really! castigated me. Of all things) for thinking such a line would work as a title. He suggested The Lust for Blueprints instead. So I did. And up until this day (and tomorrow too, I bet) I have no idea if that was the right move.