Books about Writing Poetry
Apr. 24th, 2019 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiI’ve written fills for all the prompts of my second Yahtzee roll and I’ve met my personal goal of 15 different poetic forms for national poetry month, so I thought I’d mention three books about writing poetry that I find useful. Two I have purchased (used) and one I check out when required from the library. As a part-time hobbyist-scribbler, they are all the resource I need. They are:
Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver.
The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry.
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland.
Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver.
I picked this one over The Poetry Handbook because it dealt with metrical verse, and that is where my interest lies. I learned things I was never taught in school (e.g., about sounds of letters and their effects or that a line of iambic pentameter represents the average of what can be said in one breath). I also learned more about non-metrical verse and it was interesting and didactic. At the end, there’s a selection of poems (not hers) for you to study, but they’re mostly Old White Men and the Usual Suspects (e.g. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” and “Ozymandias”)
The pros are that she’s a working poet and knows what she’s talking about. The con is (for me) that she’s a Nature snob of the Thoreau variety. And as Nature really isn’t a part of my life right now it sort leaves me feeling like I can’t be a Real Poet (even an armchair one) if I don't like to (or have the geographic opportunity/mental wherewithal to) go on long hikes in the woods.
She’s also dismissive of ‘word play’ as in ‘oh that’s just word play not poetry.’ I quite like word play, and I think someone who says ‘oh that’s just word play’ is the same kind of person who says ‘oh that’s just smut’ about PWP, without acknowledging just how much skill and finesse it takes to get total strangers off with nothing but the written word.
I like Clever much more than Earnest, so, yeah, snob.
The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry (best known to me as Jeeves!) is another kind of snob, but the more traditional kind. He’s got personality to spare and his wit and humor shine forth in this. And as he isn’t a ‘working poet,’ he starts from the very, very beginning (assuming the reader knows nothing but has an interest in writing poetry) and builds from there. That’s a very helpful strategy. And at the end of each chapter, there are exercises for the reader to try and he gives you his own examples. And he starts with, and focuses on, meter, which as I mentioned, is my interest. Mary Oliver takes herself Very Seriously (as a working poet should) and Stephen Fry is the exact opposite. Everything is a bawdy joke, which can get a bit wearying after ten chapters or so. He’s best taken in doses of one or two chapters at a time. I think the two books together make a very good balance, of Earnest American Professional and Flippant Englishman Hobbyist. When I tire of one, I go back to the other.
Both Oliver and Fry have Personality, but if you want a book without any personality, then I would recommend The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland. Each chapter is devoted to a different form. There’s a brief explanation (and bullet points!) of each form and then lots of examples. So if you want to learn more about, say, a sestina, and you don’t want Earnest or Flippant, this is the place to go. I also find the examples they use a bit more diverse, which is good.
Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver.
The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry.
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland.
Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver.
I picked this one over The Poetry Handbook because it dealt with metrical verse, and that is where my interest lies. I learned things I was never taught in school (e.g., about sounds of letters and their effects or that a line of iambic pentameter represents the average of what can be said in one breath). I also learned more about non-metrical verse and it was interesting and didactic. At the end, there’s a selection of poems (not hers) for you to study, but they’re mostly Old White Men and the Usual Suspects (e.g. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” and “Ozymandias”)
The pros are that she’s a working poet and knows what she’s talking about. The con is (for me) that she’s a Nature snob of the Thoreau variety. And as Nature really isn’t a part of my life right now it sort leaves me feeling like I can’t be a Real Poet (even an armchair one) if I don't like to (or have the geographic opportunity/mental wherewithal to) go on long hikes in the woods.
She’s also dismissive of ‘word play’ as in ‘oh that’s just word play not poetry.’ I quite like word play, and I think someone who says ‘oh that’s just word play’ is the same kind of person who says ‘oh that’s just smut’ about PWP, without acknowledging just how much skill and finesse it takes to get total strangers off with nothing but the written word.
I like Clever much more than Earnest, so, yeah, snob.
The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry (best known to me as Jeeves!) is another kind of snob, but the more traditional kind. He’s got personality to spare and his wit and humor shine forth in this. And as he isn’t a ‘working poet,’ he starts from the very, very beginning (assuming the reader knows nothing but has an interest in writing poetry) and builds from there. That’s a very helpful strategy. And at the end of each chapter, there are exercises for the reader to try and he gives you his own examples. And he starts with, and focuses on, meter, which as I mentioned, is my interest. Mary Oliver takes herself Very Seriously (as a working poet should) and Stephen Fry is the exact opposite. Everything is a bawdy joke, which can get a bit wearying after ten chapters or so. He’s best taken in doses of one or two chapters at a time. I think the two books together make a very good balance, of Earnest American Professional and Flippant Englishman Hobbyist. When I tire of one, I go back to the other.
Both Oliver and Fry have Personality, but if you want a book without any personality, then I would recommend The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland. Each chapter is devoted to a different form. There’s a brief explanation (and bullet points!) of each form and then lots of examples. So if you want to learn more about, say, a sestina, and you don’t want Earnest or Flippant, this is the place to go. I also find the examples they use a bit more diverse, which is good.
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Date: 2019-04-25 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-04-25 07:31 pm (UTC)A couple of others I like...The Book of Forms by Lewis Putnam Turco, The Poetry Toolkit by Rhiannon Williams, and The Secret Life of Poems, by Tom Paulin:-)
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Date: 2019-04-25 08:24 pm (UTC)Unfortunately (I just checked) none of those books at my library. But who knows? I may come across them somewhere.