Clouds and Anchors

[Todd]

The last few years have been rough, and I fell off from writing poems. I’m trying to jumpstart it again.

To do that, I went back to the last thing I learned that actually helped: a workshop I took with Megan Falley in 2021. I worked with her personally on what might still be the best poem I’ve ever written.

I came back here a few days ago, started writing poetry again, and slid right back into my old habits. So, I’m revising using the framework Megan taught. I want to share one key part of it in case it helps anyone else think about their poems and approach differently.

In Megan’s teaching, poems work when they combine two elements: clouds and anchors.

Clouds are the flourishes. The parts that feel like poetry. Metaphors, elevated language, clever turns of phrase. They bring the beauty and artistry if you will to the piece.

Anchors are the truths. They are the hard edges, the weight, the sensory moments that pin everything down. They make the poem hit and feel real.

To borrow a line from Megan:

The cloud holds the knife. The anchor twists it.

Depending on your style, you want a 50/50 or 60/40 split between the two.

When it’s all clouds (as my default tends to be), the poem floats away. It’s pretty, but hollow. Cotton Candy. Shiny and forgettable. It presents the reader with a riddle that they often don't care to solve. You'll hear things like: "I don't understand what you mean here".

When it’s all anchors, it reads like a journal entry. Honest, but flat. This is when you hear comments like: "This isn't a poem".

It’s the blend that matters. The tension between image and impact. Between beauty and truth. That’s where the poem happens.

That’s what I’m working toward again. Just throwing it out in case it helps someone else.

[tun]

The last few years have been rough, and I fell off from writing poems. I’m trying to jumpstart it again.

To do that, I went back to the last thing I learned that actually helped: a workshop I took with Megan Falley in 2021. I worked with her personally on what might still be the best poem I’ve ever written.

I came back here a few days ago, started writing poetry again, and slid right back into my old habits. So, I’m revising using the framework Megan taught. I want to share one key part of it in case it helps anyone else think about their poems and approach differently.

In Megan’s teaching, poems work when they combine two elements: clouds and anchors.

Clouds are the flourishes. The parts that feel like poetry. Metaphors, elevated language, clever turns of phrase. They bring the beauty and artistry if you will to the piece.

Anchors are the truths. They are the hard edges, the weight, the sensory moments that pin everything down. They make the poem hit and feel real.

To borrow a line from Megan:

The cloud holds the knife. The anchor twists it.

Depending on your style, you want a 50/50 or 60/40 split between the two.

When it’s all clouds (as my default tends to be), the poem floats away. It’s pretty, but hollow. Cotton Candy. Shiny and forgettable. It presents the reader with a riddle that they often don't care to solve. You'll hear things like: "I don't understand what you mean here".

When it’s all anchors, it reads like a journal entry. Honest, but flat. This is when you hear comments like: "This isn't a poem".

It’s the blend that matters. The tension between image and impact. Between beauty and truth. That’s where the poem happens.

That’s what I’m working toward again. Just throwing it out in case it helps someone else.

For me poetry is anything that anybody says that you can remember. It is not special, it is ordinary. All of human memory is poetry. It is effortless and immediate. It is not something that can be formulated in thought, or by the facility of any formula or recipie, gnosis or conscious method. Poetry is speech. Speech is anything that anybody says that you can remember.

[patrickoday]

I love this metaphor, and it makes a lot of sense especially if you want your poems to be understood.

I do somewhat disagree though about the 50/50 60/40 recommendation.

I believe that if the clouds are heavy enough, the reader will feel the dew on their skin or maybe their soul will even get drenched with rain. That is if the reader is the target, if the clouds are overhead the reader, they will feel its impact no matter what. If the reader can only see the clouds from afar, they likely lack the life experience that will bring them understanding and they will be the ones who require an anchor to facilitate that.

That said, to reach a wider audience 50/50 is probably ideal. But I think that poems where the clouds whose rain acts as its own anchor weighing down the readers situated underneath are the most deeply felt poems. But those ones are reserved for those underneath who are able to feel the rain.