Cleave Chain

Kick-off post

This month we’ve seen some prolific poem-publishing and collaborations happening within Chalkboard and across Medium in general. We’d like to put a bow to the end of April by starting a cleave chain poetry series, and we hope you’ll hop on the train with us.

What’s a cleave?

The Cleave Poem form is an experimental form created by Dr Phuoc-Tan Diep, now embraced by many.

A cleave poem is where there are two (or more) poems sitting side by side that can be read together as one poem, or separately as independent poems.

Here’s an example of a cleave poem:

Dr Phuoc-Tan Diep

Try reading all the way across the lines. Then read only the unbolded text down the left side of the poem. Then read the bolded right side on its own. Three poems in one: how cool is that?

But how do we make a chain?

Tamyka Bell and I have been experimenting with the form to seed the chain. We’ve chosen some poets of old times long gone to tribute our cleaves to. To join the chain, follow these steps:

Part I: how to write your cleave

1. Prepare your brain, and mostly your heart.
2. Read the submissions on our Cleave Chain page (or the kick-off poems in the list below), and choose one you like.
3. Follow the link at the bottom of that poem. It takes you to a Medium story with only the original part of the poem — the part you’ll write to.
4. Copy and paste the original poem to a working document. Dewi and Tamyka like to use a table in Google docs, because it makes later steps easier, but you can use whatever text editing software you like. Copy the link in as well — you’ll need it later.
5. Decide whether you want to do a left cleave or right cleave. By this we mean do you want to write on the left side of the seed poem, or the right side. Or you can even do both, sandwiching the poem between two of your own, because you like pain. (We did this. It’s a satisfying pain.)
6. Do it. (You know you want to.)

Part II: how to publish your cleave poem

1. Publish your original poem — just your side of the cleave — in a different publication or just as part of your feed. (Don’t submit it to Chalkboard, because we’re only collecting the cleaves.)
   At the bottom of your cleave, add the text: “This piece is part of the Cleave Chain collaboration on Chalkboard.”
2. Submit the complete cleave to submit to Chalkboard as draft with the tag “Cleave Chain” + any other tags you want. Give the poem a title, and acknowledge your source poet in the subtitle, e.g. “A cleave with [name]”.
   Add this snippet beneath your poem, filling in the [links]:
   This piece is part of the Cleave Chain collaboration on Chalkboard. To continue the cleave chain, copy my part of the cleave from the original post here:
   [link to the poem you published in part II, step 1]
   The base poem can be found at:
   [link to the original poem you copied in part I, step 4]

Confused? It’ll make sense when you see the examples. (We hope. Let us know if it doesn’t.)

We recommend creating an image with the cleave poem for the complete cleave post so that people can see clearly the cleave. How? You can use tools like Pixlr.com or Canva or take a photo/screenshot of your writing with the poem/s laid out side by side. Feel free to highlight the different sides of the cleave, or format it as you like. Don’t forget to attribute the image if you use a background image.

If you’re not yet a Chalkboard writer, please respond below so we can add you.

Let’s start! We’re excited to see what cleaves will come out of this.

Poems to kick off the cleave chains:

Sonnets

Letters for Spring — a cleave by Dewi with Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Willowwood Reverberations — a double cleave by Dewi and Tamyka with Christina Rossetti

Haiku

Autumn — a cleave by Dewi and Tamyka with William J. Higginson

a waking poet — a cleave by Dewi with William J. Higginson

Photo by Michael Gaida (Pixabay)