Books For The Poet
Books purchased through these book links help provide support for this web site.
Check out the Top Literature and Fiction at Amazon
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Books For The Poet Books purchased through these book links help provide support for this web site. Check out the Top Literature and Fiction at Amazon
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A rhyming dictionary is a useful tool for poets, and can frequently help generate unexpected word choices when you are thinking in form. Packed with useful information in an accessible format, this dictionary is fun and easy to use. A simple alphabetical index helps the reader locate a full set of rhyming words in the book's main text, making finding the perfect rhyme as easy as using a dictionary. The Bloomsbury Rhyming Dictionary is a great companion for poets. |
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Ted Kooser, 13th U.S. Poet Laureate, wrote The Poetry Home Repair Manual and like his own poetry, it's a simply written book of "Practical Advice for Beginning Poets."
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Writer's Digest's Annual Writers and Poets Market series gives you info on journals and magazines, book publishers, and chapbook publishers of poetry as well as information on contests, awards, conferences, workshops, organizations, publications, and Web sites of interest to poets. For the poet trying to get published, it offers a great starting place.
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Poetry 180 is designed to make it easy for students to hear or read a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year. I have selected the poems you will find here with high school students in mind. They are intended to be listened to, and I suggest that all members of the school community be included as readers. A great time for the readings would be following the end of daily announcements over the public address system. Listening to poetry can encourage students and other learners to become
members of the circle of readers for whom poetry is a vital source
of pleasure. I hope Poetry 180 becomes an important and enriching part
of the school day." - Billy Collins -
Former Poet Laureate of the United States 180 More, released in May 2005, continues the 180 project that Collins began while he was Poet Laureate |
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Getting The Knack: 20 Poetry Writing Exercises by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford This book will introduces you to 20 different kinds of poetry starters and provides exercises in writing poems based on both memory and imagination. The exercises are engaging and easy to understand . There are instructions on found poems, letter poems, pantoums, question-answer poems, and syllable count poems. Their writing style is breezy and conversational, the examples provided are of high quality yet not out of reach for a new writer. This book is often used as a text for student writers. |
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Rules
for the Dance : A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse Just as dancing is "the art of moving in accord with a pattern," says Mary Oliver, so is writing metrical verse. "One sorts out the pattern, one relies on it, and relaxes from effort to pleasure." The rules (concerning rhyme, line length, and pattern) are made if not to be deliberately flouted, then at least to be toyed with. Oliver claims to have written this book for both writers and readers of metrical verse, but it is an odd sort of fit for either. A writer might wish for a little more detail; a reader might find too much. The book works best as a kind of refresher course, for those who have forgotten the difference between metaphysical and Petrarchan conceits, between masculine and feminine rhymes, and would like to brush up a bit. Oliver does a wonderful job of explaining why the most common forms of metrical verse came to prevail (for instance, the five-foot line is "the line which is the closest to the breathing capacity of our lungs"), and of nudging us into reading more metrical poetry (nearly half this volume is devoted to works by John Donne, William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and others). Blessedly, Oliver reminds us that, though one could get carried away trying new meters and forms, one shouldn't expect to be writing a lot of double ionics anytime soon. "Expect to use one hypersyllabic foot in ten years, perhaps," she says. "Anacrusis, rarely. Catalexis: often. The double ionic: when the next comet flies over." Reviewed by Jane Steinberg |
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Thunder
and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer's Craft Where her earlier book, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, was designed to start you writing, this new title is how we can explore our "interior territory" through the practice of reading and writing mindfully. "Do not say you were not warned," she cautions. "To continue this crazy thing called writing might lead to steep precipices, dangerous canyons, craggy cliffs. I make no promises" Writing, like meditation, is a "place where we can meet ourselves deeply," allowing us to "encounter the imprint of something immense running through us." A writer's path, Goldberg tells us, "includes concentration, slowing down, commitment, awareness, loneliness, faith, a breakdown of ordinary perceptions--the same qualities attributed to monks or Zen masters" Goldberg sees writing as "a true spiritual path, an authentic Zen way. Writing is an immediate mirror: it reflects back to you. You can't fool anyone, especially yourself. Here you're the doer and the done, the worldly person and the monk" Similarly, the practice of reading mindfully allows us to "wake up to everything about a book . . . it will become alive and take flight" |
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A Year in the Life : Journaling for Self-discovery - by Sheila Bender A Year in the Life has some excellent writing exercises here, taking cues from many sources. The subtitle ("Journaling for Self-discovery") might scare off a writer in search of a good workout. Author Sheila Bender's premise is that "journaling can help you emotionally, spiritually, and physically, as well as with your writing." Bender offers 52 journaling exercises, one for each week of the year. Each exercise is accompanied with a series of six "extensions," for those writers ambitious enough to take their pens for a daily jog. The book offers numerous prompts with examples: Frank O'Hara wrote a poem in which the sun conversed with him -- Gary Snyder wrote a poem called "Things to Do Around a Lookout"; you can pick your own place to write about in a similar fashion. And try writing, as Frances Mayes does in "Under the Tuscan Sun," about a time when you were "a guest at a table of people you didn't know." |
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The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Form by Mark Strand (Editor), Eavan Boland (Editor) These two poets have created an anthology that will be useful to teachers, writers and readers. Understanding form--sonnet, ballad, villanelle, sestina, etc.-- can certainly widen your appreciation of poetry. The volume explains terms, names, and the histories of various poetic forms. It explains their origins, traces their development, and shows examples from the past and present. In a feature called "The form at a glance" the reader can try his or her own hand writing a particular form. Included are essays by each of the editors describing their own personal journeys toward a form for their poetic voice. Above all, this anthology shows that poetic form is a continuing adventure. Contemporary poets can be seen here trying out the same forms that poets used hundreds of years ago, but in the new circumstances of a complicated modern world. In this way poetic form is illustrated not as a series of rules, but as a passionate conversation in which every reader of poetry can become involved. |
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The biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo, New Jersey has been called the Woodstock of poetry. Taking place over the course of several September days every other year, the festival comprises readings, workshops and performances. Audiences under the big tent can reach several thousand... so many lovers of poetry gathered in one place. In Fooling
with Words, Bill Moyers interviews 11 of the poets on the festival's
1998 roster including: Deborah Garrison, Stanley Kunitz, Coleman Barks,
Robert Pinsky, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Paul Muldoon, Marge Piercy, Mark
Doty, Jane Hirshfield, Kurtis Lamkin, and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim.
This is a companion volume to the PBS television series. |
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Sheila Bender's Writing Personal Poetry encourages poets to peel away their inhibitions and touch deep, true feelings - to write everything from dream journals and postcards to lists and clustered phrases. She is a successful author, poet and teacher who has written three books on writing instruction. She has also published two collections of poetry. |
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Best Words, Best Order : Essays on Poetry "The chapters are individual essays, ranging on a wide variety of topics, which were originally delivered as lectures at various points between 1975 and 1993. Over the years, Dobyns refined each of the essays many times over, and published the collection in 1997. This book is for poets of intermediate to advanced experience; basic terms and popular poems are assumed to be known by the reader. I have read many books on writing poetry, and this ranks at the top." ~ Steve Shaheen~ As its title implies, Stephen Dobyns's rigorous collection of essays about poetry celebrates Coleridge's dictum that poetry is the best words in the best order. Dobyns's probing examinations of the elements of poetry--metaphor, pacing, tone--and his study of the evolution of free verse are not for Sunday-sunset versifiers. They are strenuous, meaty, and wholly satisfying fare, intended for serious students of poetry. Dobyns, the author of eight volumes of poetry (and 17 novels), believes, like Baudelaire, that "each poem ... has an optimum number of words [and] an optimum number of pieces of information ... and to go over or under even by one word weakens the whole." |
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The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is the standard comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Trying to figure out the ghazal form? The origin of the paradelle? Found poetry or Neo-Thomism ... this is the place to check. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in length from relatively brief notices to substantial articles of about 20,000 words. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, first published in 1965, established itself as a standard in the field. |
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Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life With Words by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge (a poet and teacher who conducts workshops privately, as well as in the California Poets in the Schools program) is a critically acclaimed teaching guide for instructors, writers, and general readers into the very heart and intensity of life and the craft of expressing what one feels there through the written word. |
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In How To Read A Poem--And Start a Poetry Circle, poet Molly Peacock takes you through 13 poems by other poets that she calls "talismans" of different stages of her own life. The book ends with advice on starting a poetry circle and talisman poems selected by other poets. |
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The Poet's Companion : A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry by Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux A "teaching" guide for individuals or for groups, in or out of the classroom, to share the weekly assignments. Numerous examples of contemporary poetry, chosen for relevance and freshness, illustrate salient points and stimulate the imagination. From the nuts and bolts of craft to sources of inspiration it's Poets Online when you're not online. |
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Poems about rock and roll (not song lyrics.) Sweet Nothings : An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American Poetry by Jim Elledge contains many poems including: Fifties Rock Party, 1985 by Judith Berke, Elegy For Elvis by Richard A. Blessing, On The Elvis Mailing List by Neal Bowers, Hully Gully by Rita Dove, Paul Butterfield, Dead At 44 by Robert Gibb, Cruising With The Beach Boys by Dana Gioia, Night Waitress by Lynda Hull, The Supremes by Mark Jarman, The Man Who Knew The Words To Louie, Louie by David Keller, Hanoi Hannah by Yusef Komunyakaa, Soul Music by Baron Wormser. |
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Gary Snyder writes that Jane Hirshfield's essays in Nine Gates have "a diamond-hard set of insights to share" about the nature of poetry. Hirshfield approaches poetry from a number of angles and discusses a wide-ranging body of work, including ancient Egyptian love poets, Allen Ginsberg, W. B. Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Stevie Smith, and Li Po. Hirshfield is also a fine poet, and this skill tempers her insights with humility: she knows she is attempting to explain the inexplicable, so she doesn't try to disentangle the mystery. |
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Steve Kowit believes that poetry should show, not tell. The same could be said for good teaching, which is what makes this volume, In the Palm of Your Hand, so remarkable. Kowit employs more than 100 poems and excerpts to illustrate his discussions on everything from metaphor to meter to metaphysics. Working your way through this book is like sitting in on a terrific creative-writing seminar, minus the criticism (both constructive and destructive) of fellow students. If you go by the book, you'll have written at least 69 poems by the end. |
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The
Practice of Poetry : Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach |
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Robert Pinsky's brief, readable volume, The Sounds of Poetry : A Brief Guide, zooms in on verse and its sound. He starts with the building blocks of verse: accent and duration. Even the most jaded of readers will benefit from his syllable-by-syllable examination of poems like Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning" then moving through discussions of syntax and line, meter and rhyme (or lack thereof.) It leaves your ear attuned to the pleasurable play of poetic language and persuades you that hearing is, indeed, believing. ~ reviewed by James Marcus |
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