While clichés are typically discouraged for their lack of originality, some poets deliberately employ or subvert them as a constraint to critique convention, expose cultural tropes, or reanimate tired language through irony or juxtaposition; using cliché as a formal boundary forces poets to confront linguistic habit and reader expectation, turning banality into a site of poetic innovation or social commentary within tightly controlled diction.

Clichés are overused phrases (“light as a feather”) that constrained poets either avoid or subvert. Parodying clichés (e.g., Billy Collins’ “Litany”) reveals their hidden absurdities. As a constraint, students might rewrite clichés literally or invert them. Cliché management teaches originality and awareness of linguistic habit—key in both traditional and avant-garde practice.