I don't know... I'm Italian, so my idea of clichcan be even different... On the whole I think that there are a few images in poetry, as well as prose, that are truly used a little too much, but you cannot call the image in itself a clich I thinks it depend a lot on how the poet uses it... Yesterday I was at a 'night of music and poetry'... I follow a small literary circle, and sometimes we are invited at such meetings... It was not a bad evening, the music (classical music) was good, and I met a lot of fellow writers (I'm not a poet myself, but I like to hear different voices)... There wasn't a given theme, and the poets gathering there came from different places, and some even never met before; but every, EVERY poem read yesterday had an image of 'seagulls above the sea', sometimes they were 'white birds above the deep water', and they were the metaphore for different things (souls, ghosts, love, peace and whatnot)... But I assured you that by the end of the evening I had paid for being allowed to shout "Clich" in the middle of the performance every time the blessed birds were mentioned... This doesn't mean that there cannot be good poems with seagulls in them, I've read some I really like... There are few images that are used a lot: moonlights, roses, SEAGULLS, eyes reflecting souls, etc. I think they are a difficult material to manage, because a lot of people use them... of course it makes a lot of difference how they are used, but if read in the wrong context... I'm sure that there were some good poems among the ones read yesterday, but after a while I wasn't even listening at them, merely waiting (never disappointed) for the seagulls to come out... Okay, sorry if I intruded in your thread, but after the 'night of music and seagulls' I needed a little rant too. And I'm not even a poet to write a comment in verse. ;)