In a poetry workshop I took in the spring of 2021 (how was that two years ago, I had to double-check that date as I don’t really believe it, what is time, etc.), my friend and teacher Joanna Currey shared with us what she called her “anchor poems,” and we in turn were asked to share our own. These are poems we return to again & again—the poems that “centre, balance, comfort, relieve, remind, and refresh us” (in Joanna’s words, which I love). As a very chaotic person and reader, it was enjoyable to be tasked with contemplating and collecting my own anchor poems. I’m sharing them with you today not as a cop-out of writing my own poetry (I promise!) but in hopes you might love them, too, or even feel inspired to begin gathering some anchor poems of your own. If you already do so, all the better, and I’d love if you shared some with me.
It was hard to choose only four poems here, but I’d rather you savour short-but-sweetness than drown in a deluge of sugar.
Amen.
I now will spend all of tomorrow procrastinating work by finding my anchor poems. Thank you 💖