The numbered clouds

Original non-fiction-style practice text.

My niece returned from school able to identify four metaphors in a poem about clouds. When I asked what the sky in the poem felt like, she looked back at her notes. The clouds had acquired numbers, but apparently no weather.

Knowing the names of techniques can help a reader explain an effect. I use those names myself. What troubles me is a lesson which appears to stop at finding them, as though a metaphor were a rare object collected for a display. The poet chose words to make something happen in a reader's imagination, not simply to hide an answer beneath each line.

Ask her to describe one cloud before counting four devices. Let the terms return when they have something to explain. I would rather hear a precise observation without its label than an immaculate list which has forgotten to look upwards.

Assess the writer’s attitude towards counting techniques in a poem. Use three details from the text to support your answer.