Clichés will kill your poem. You'll want to avoid them at all costs.
For those who may not be familiar with the term, a cliché is something that is overused and unoriginal.
Examples:
"love like fire"
"black like my soul"
"light and dark"
If you go to some of the free poetry sites out there that allow anyone to post their work, you'll find a lot cliché and poorly written poems. (If you want to learn what not to do, I'd recommend taking a look at those sites. You may find a few gems in there, but most of them will probably be generic poetry.)
In the following imagery chapters, we'll go over ways to avoid writing cliché similes and metaphors.
