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Reviewing Books on Poetics

Josh
Joshua Bond
Tyrant of Words
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Joined 2nd Feb 2017
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This forum is for posting your reviews of books, monographs and extended essays on Poetics.
The aim is to help DUP poets choose literature on poetics that best helps them on their journey to understand, enjoy and improve their experience of poetry.

Guidelines:

1). Give basic details of the book/monograph/essay, plus post a photo of the front cover if you have a hard copy. Note also whether it’s a later edition that might have additional information, a new foreword, etc.
Give a brief outline of how the book is divided up (sections, chapters)

2). Say what you found to be un/helpful about the book/monograph/essay, and why.

3). 600-1200 words.

4). It’s fine if different people review the same book. In that way this forum will generate an interesting range of perspectives.

5). Feel free to have a discussion based on the reviews.


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Reviewed so far:
1). A POETRY HANDBOOK (A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry)
by Mary Oliver.
Reviewed by Josh, 8th Feb, 2021.

2). THE ODE LESS TRAVELLED (Unlocking The Poet Within)
by Stephen Fry
Reviewed by Josh, 8th Feb, 2021.

3). STRONG WORDS (Modern Poets on Modern Poetry)
edited by W.N Herbert & Matthew Hollis.
Reviewed by Josh, 8th Feb, 2021.

4).THE MAKING OF A POEM (A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms)
edited by Mark Strand& Eavan Boland
Reviewed by Josh 21st Feb, 2021.




Josh
Joshua Bond
Tyrant of Words
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Joined 2nd Feb 2017
Forum Posts: 1686


A POETRY HANDBOOK (a prose guide to understanding and writing poetry)
by Mary Oliver (1935-2019).
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1994, 1st Edition (130 pages)


There are 14 chapters ranging from 4 to15 pages long, which makes it readable in bite-size chunks.
This is the first book on poetics I ever read, about 12 years ago, and looking through it again I realise what a lucky choice that was. The book is a gentle and encouraging introduction to poetics for the complete beginner.
The first four chapters (Introduction / Getting Ready / Reading Poems / Imitation) help the reader establish an open attitude and orientation towards poetry.
The next seven chapters cover aspects of poetry that Oliver deems the most important to cultivate a deeper awareness of  — (sound / more devices of sound / the line / some given forms / verse that is free / diction, tone, voice / imagery).
The final three chapters (revision / workshops & solitude / conclusion) are an encouragement to take oneself seriously as a poet and feel worthy enough to invest appropriate time and energy in poetry. It’s a journey of discovery to be undertaken rather than goal to be achieved.

This book is about the essentials of crafting a poem. “It is craft, after all, that carries an individual’s ideas to the far edge of familiar territory” (p.2). And concerning the craft Oliver states “This book is not meant to be more than a beginning — but it is meant to be a good beginning” (p.4). A statement which gives the reader confidence. But of course to activate that good beginning requires turning up at the desk, regularly.
Another starting essential is to read other poets, lots of them … “Good poems are the best teachers. Perhaps they are the only teachers” (p.10).
Finally in the introductory chapters, Oliver talks about imitating other poets. For the novice this helps find one’s poetic voice. Do I have a natural bent towards metrical verse? The lengthy cadences of Whitman? Free-style satirical poetry?

The seven chapters comprising the ‘middle’ of the book really do take a novice by the hand, introducing notions of a poem’s soundscape, the role of determining line length, rhythm and metrics, tone, imagery etc. There is nothing complicated or head-scratching in the way Oliver writes; rather like her poetry really, a simplicity (born of mastery) and yet profound. These middle chapters have plenty of examples of both complete and part poems.

The closing three chapters are short (3-4 pages each). Oliver’s attitude is to encourage the reader to get into practising the craft. In the chapter on revision, one particular point sticks in my mind. Poems are often initiated from an emotional ‘gust’. This means we invest a lot of ownership in what we first wrote, and are psychologically reluctant to do the necessary cuts and revision. “…because of this very sense of ownership, the poem is often burdened with a variety of “true” but unhelpful details” (p.109). An antidote to this is to follow the advice she quotes from John Cleever “I lie, in order to tell a more significant truth” (p.110). A poem exists in order to be a poem, to get at the ‘more significant truth’ which must always trump the element of confessional, no matter how pressing.

In the concluding chapter, Mary Oliver offers one of her own driving reminders of the creative process. She quotes Flaubert in a letter to Van Gogh “Talent is long patience, and originality an effort of will and of intense observation” (p.121). She closes by reminding the reader that “Poetry is a life-cherishing force … For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry” (p.122).

I savoured these closing remarks as a reminder that in one sense we do creative work for its own sake and inner reward (we enjoy it, we get a kick out of it) but also, if it is true that “as in the inner, so in the outer”, then the outer orientation of a poem is an act of service, compassion even, for the greater good of our fellow humans on this planet. A connection of conscious mind and heart (as Oliver notes at the beginning). The book has come full circle.
If you want to read your first ever book on poetics, then Oliver’s ‘handbook’ will most probably be a good experience.

Ahavati
Tyrant of Words
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Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 14265

There are a few good reviews over on the DU Published Authors' thread which promotes DU members ( yourself included, if I'm remembering correctly ). Should those be posted here or no?

Josh
Joshua Bond
Tyrant of Words
Palestine 40awards
Joined 2nd Feb 2017
Forum Posts: 1686


THE ODE LESS TRAVELLED (Unlocking The Poet Within)
by Stephen Fry (b.1957)
First pub by Hutchinson, 2005; this edition pub by Arrow Books, 2007 (357 pages)


After first reading Mary Oliver’s book, reviewed above, I wanted a book that would give me a good grounding in ‘technical’ aspects and all the jargon to do with poetics. I made the right choice with The Ode Less Travelled. It’s now well worn and copiously scribbled in.
As one would expect from Stephen Fry, it is written in a witty and entertaining manner (which kept me well engaged). It is also written to assuage the fear and blockages that Fry assumes many people have in relation to reading and writing poetry — negative school experiences of poetry may be partly responsible.

At 357 pages, it’s a significant read and is divided into four main sections (Metre / Rhyme / Form / Diction & Poetics Today). Sections 1 and 3 (Metre and Form) are the longest at about 120 pages each. The section on Rhyme is 50 pages, the last section, 20 pages. There is an extensive 20-pages glossary of terms (very useful) and definitions of oddities (like Arnaud’s Algorithm).
There are hundreds of poetry examples throughout the book and which introduced me to many poets I’d never heard of (and which led me to the third book I review here).
Fry’s book is also full of interesting historical snippets and poetry quotes gleaned over the years. Before getting to the start of the book, he asks the reader to sign up to Three Golden Rules: (1).Take your time, poetry is best read slowly, and re-reading will be required to assimilate all the new jargon. (2).Don’t worry about meaning (or get cross with poetry if you feel it fails to deliver meaning). By observing Rule:1, meaning will come in its own time. (3).Always carry a notebook with you.

Section-I (Metre) starts with ‘The Great Iamb’, built naturally into the way English is spoken and proceeds through seven chapters covering terms like end-stopping, enjambment, caesura, differing beats to the line, differing ‘feet’ (molossus, tribrach, trochee, etc), Sprung Rhythm from Anglo-Saxon times, and Syllabic Verse.
The section ends with a useful Table of Metric Feet, which I am forever looking up to remind myself the difference between an amphibrach and an amphimacer. There are user-friendly and encouraging exercises at the end of each chapter - and Fry always has a go himself.

Section-II (Rhyme) tackles the question of good and bad rhyme, a variety of rhyming arrangements, notions of partial and rich rhymes. Again with exercises and a useful summary table at the end of the section.

Section-III (Form) has 11 chapters, again with exercises, and starts with the question, why have stanzas at all? After offering a number of variations, chapters cover Ballads, Heroic Verse, Odes, Closed Forms (villanelle, sestina, pantoum, rondels, rondeaus, etc). There is a chapter on Comic verse (Centos, Clerihews, Limericks), Exotic Forms (haikus, Tankas, Luc Bats, and more), a serious chapter on the Sonnet form and finally Shaped Verse.

Section-IV (Diction & Poetics Today) covers being alert to language and to poetic vices (Ten Habits of Successful Poets that They Don’t teach You at Harvard Poetry School, Chicken Verse for the Soul, etc …).

Concluding his book on technical aspects of poetry, Stephen Fry notes his personal preference is that he would rather read dynamic (albeit technically flawed) poetry and identifies the need for ‘wildness’ — “technical perfection may be the aim, but it is out of the living and noisy struggle to escape the manacles of form that the true human voice in all its tones of love, sorrow, joy and fury most clearly emerges” (p.326).

This book did the job for me in terms of getting the knowledge I wanted, and serves as my first go-to basic reference book of poetics technics. I’ve recommended it to several people on DUP.


Josh
Joshua Bond
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STRONG WORDS (Modern Poets on Modern Poetry)
edited by W.N Herbert (b.1961) & Matthew Hollis (b.1971)
Bloodaxe Books, 2000 (316 pages)


After reading the basic introduction to poetics by Mary Oliver, and the solid grounding in technical poetics from Stephen Fry, I wanted to hear a wide range of opinions by poets themselves on the craft. I looked for a book that combined two aspects. One was to get a wide range of insights from those who had achieved mastery of the poetic craft; and two, as a more general truth, “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power” (p.1 in Yuval Noah Harari’s “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”; [Harari is a historian, not a poet]). I wanted to avoid blabber, especially high-minded show-off literary blabber, and thereby avoid having to plough my way throgh 200 pages just to get a few good insights.
I found what I was looking for in this book, Strong Words.

It’s 316 pages, and has excerpts from 77 poets (British, Irish and American) who have written thoughtfully about their craft. Chapters vary from two to ten pages long, and each have a half page bio on the poet, written by the editors.
Many of the excerpts chosen are from essays written by the poets on their craft; some are from their books, and others from an occasional interview or lecture. To me, many read like manifestos for poetry — no doubt one of the intentions that motivated the editors’ selections. At the end of each of the chapters, there are source notes and options for further reading, and absolute gold-mine of leads for follow-up.

It covers the 20th century starting with Ezra Pound (1885-1972), W.B Yeats (1865-1939), T.S.Eliot 1888-1965), Robert Graves 1895-1985), Robert Frost (1873-1963), Hart Crane (1899-1932) and continues all the way through to poets born in the 1960s. The later contributions were made for Bloodaxe as specially commissioned statements for this book.

In their introduction Herbert & Hollis write “We have attempted in each case to find the illuminating moment is a poet’s prose, or something of their general philosophy toward the medium of poetry. We have sought out both the explicit manifesto, and the more unguarded moment, the point at which both the writer and reader discover something new” (p.11). The editors note that poetry has been through a phase of obscurity but now (as in the year 2000) poets are becoming personalised and packaged. Public awareness is growing with initiatives such as Poetry on the Underground (in London), lots of new prize money, poetry bestsellers like Birthday Letters and Beowolf. The new commercialisation of poetry requires poets to address ever more urgently the cultural role of poetry, and to clear “that fog of fear and misrepresentation” (p.16).

With that in mind, I have read this book twice and find it fascinating. Of the 77 poets represented, 12 struck me with something extra inspirational to say and which I keep looking at to get their message under my skin. They are Robert Frost, W.H Auden, Louis Zukovsky, Denise Levertov, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Eaven Boland, David Constantine, Selima Hill, Sarah Maguire, John Burnside and Don Paterson. I have yet to follow up on some of their longer works from which their statements are drawn.

What I am always looking for regarding books on poetics, is something that hits a raw nerve in me as to the deepest reason why writing poetry is a worthwhile activity. In a world with a billion starving, are there not more urgent priorities than writing poetry? How does poetry contribute to “saving the world”?

One pointer came from John Burnside where he writes of poetry as a transcendence of the idea of victory-defeat (zero sum win-lose) and points towards life as “a journey, leading away from the social demand for persons and towards the self-renewing continuing invention … of the spirit.” This implies that poetry is “an ecological discipline of the richest and subtlest kind. In this sense, writing is thus a political act: one which expresses not the agendas of special interest groups, but the search for an appropriate manner of dwelling upon the earth” (p.261).

This is the kind of thoughtful reflective idea you will find throughout this book, focussing mainly on poetics from the angle of the raison-d’ętre of poetry in the lives of the poet, and its role in society at large. If Frost’s dictum that poetry “begins in delight and ends in wisdom” is true, then the pursuit of poetry is well justified. Highly recommended.


Ahavati
Tyrant of Words
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I believe we cross-posted:

Ahavati said:There are a few good reviews over on the DU Published Authors' thread which promotes DU members ( yourself included, if I'm remembering correctly ). Should those be posted here or no?

Josh
Joshua Bond
Tyrant of Words
Palestine 40awards
Joined 2nd Feb 2017
Forum Posts: 1686

Ahavati said:I believe we cross-posted:



Perhaps there is a misunderstanding.
By "Poetics" I mean the art of writing poetry, the study of techniques in poetry, and any books on the craft of poetry in general.
This thread is not about published DUP authors.

Umm
Dangerous Mind
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Awesome idea for a thread!.. find these kind of books quite interesting

Subscribed ☺️

Ahavati
Tyrant of Words
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Joined 11th Apr 2015
Forum Posts: 14265

Josh said:

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding.
By "Poetics" I mean the art of writing poetry, the study of techniques in poetry, and any books on the craft of poetry in general.
This thread is not about published DUP authors.


You're right. I misunderstood the thread.  I didn't think it was about DU published authors; however, I did think it was for general book reviews, not the art/study of writing poetry.

VeronikaB
Twisted Dreamer
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Excellent thread! Love it already. It's always an inspiration to read a review of a book I might want to read.
I love books on the craft of writing and the creative process in general, but got to admit I haven't read any on poetics (yet!)
[Embarrassing – I know – especially since the above books live in the book shelf in my own home...]
I think I'll start with Mary Oliver.

Josh
Joshua Bond
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Joined 2nd Feb 2017
Forum Posts: 1686

Umm said:Awesome idea for a thread!.. find these kind of books quite interesting

Subscribed ☺️


Thank you Umm. Hope you enjoy the reviews and feel inspired to dig deeper into the world of poetics.

Josh
Joshua Bond
Tyrant of Words
Palestine 40awards
Joined 2nd Feb 2017
Forum Posts: 1686

VeronikaB said:Excellent thread! Love it already. It's always an inspiration to read a review of a book I might want to read.
I love books on the craft of writing and the creative process in general, but got to admit I haven't read any on poetics (yet!)
[Embarrassing – I know – especially since the above books live in the book shelf in my own home...]
I think I'll start with Mary Oliver.


💜  💕 🌹 🙏

Josh
Joshua Bond
Tyrant of Words
Palestine 40awards
Joined 2nd Feb 2017
Forum Posts: 1686


THE MAKING OF A POEM (A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms)
edited by Mark Strand (1934-2014) and Eavan Boland (1944-2020)
W.W.Norton, 2001 (366 pages)


As the title suggests, this book straddles the cusp between a book on poetics (investigating poetic forms) and an anthology. It explores 12 different forms, largely by illustrating them with poems, 196 in total. Weight is given to the historical aspect of how each form developed over time.

The book is split into four sections. I.Verse Forms, villanelle, sestina, pantoum, sonnet, ballad, blank verse, heroic couplet, and the stanza. II.Meter, is only three pages and basically points the reader to where they can find out about meter for themselves.  III.Shaping Forms, covers the elegy, the pastoral and the ode. IV.Open Forms, which is its own singular category.
There is a very brief glossary of terms plus short biographies of the 170 contributing poets with further reading, and an additional list of 19 books more specifically on poetics.

The editors were both academic poets (Strand, American; Boland, Irish) and after a joint Introductory Statement on the rationale of the book, they each write of their own experience on how they first got into poetry, something I looked forward to reading.
Mark Strand’s I found highly academic, analysing the poem which first ‘hooked him’ (Archibald MacLiesh’s “You, Andrew Marvel”). Contrasting the role of feeling in poetry generally with feeling in the poem analysed, Strand writes “Moreover, because of the ambiguous and, I believe, elaborate way “to feel” is presented, the poem appears to be acknowledging a response that we’ve already had while at the same time urging us to participate in an extended reconstruction of it” (p.xx). No, I had to read it several times too; tedious. Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, and many others manage to write accessibly about poetry; why not Strand?
Eaven Boland’s account of her first encounters with poetry is more user-friendly — how a line from a verse ‘silenced her’ for years and how she eventually found her poetic voice as a mother looking after children - “It is voice that complies with life rather than the other way round” (p.xxiv).

Each of the 12 forms has a short 2-3 page introduction covering very briefly the basics of the form, its history, and its contemporary context. There then follow the various anthology examples of the form. At the end of each section the editors highlight one of the contributing poets in that section, with a short bio, photo, and sometimes a personal insight into a link between the poet and the poem.

The book’s format of illustrating poetic forms with several carefully chosen examples fits with Mary Oliver’s comment (Review, Nr.1), namely “Good poems are the best teachers. Perhaps they are the only teachers”. Of the 170 poets represented, 95 are American, 62 English, 11 Irish, 1 Australian, 1 Canadian.

The number in brackets is how many poem examples there are.

1).Villanelles (14):  Five classic examples are followed by contemporary ones, including an extended villanelle. There’s an extra bio on Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79), and her poem “One Art” which shows the power of the villanelle in combining serious subject matter (loss) in a light-hearted way.
2).Sestinas (12):  These are complicated and difficult to do well avoiding being obviously forced forced to fit the form. The ones by Weldon Kees (1914-55) and Anthony Hecht (1923-2004) seemed the most natural to me and used the form to powerful effect.
3).Pantoum (6):  I found Pantoum of the Great Depression by Donald Justice (1925-2004) to be the most interesting, bending the form somewhat, but using it wisely in relation to the topic.
4).Sonnet (23):  I’m not a great fan of poetry pre about 1850, I find the language inaccessible. The first 10 examples fell into that category. 20th century examples from Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950), Patrick Kavanagh (1905-67), and especially After the Bomb Tests by Jane Cooper (1924-2007) were stimulating reads. The rhyming schemes varied a lot over the 23 examples and the editors could have said more about strictness with forms generally.
5).Ballads (13): Highlights were section-II of Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900) Ballad of Reading Gaol, and Death in Leamington by John Betjeman (1906-84). The older ballads I found rather boring.
6).Blank Verse (11):  The first seven are pre-1900, and though ‘classics’ (including Shakespeare, Milton) I found them uninteresting. Edward Thomas (1878-1917) with his war poem Rain, and Robert Frost’s (1874-1963) Directive were very engaging.
7).Heroic Couplet (11): Nine are pre-1900, mostly 17th century examples. But it follows the editors’ choice to favour older examples of the beginning of the form. That left two 20th century examples — Wilfrid Owen (1893-1918) and Thom Gunn (1923-2004).
8).The Stanza (19):  This was an intriguing section of the book. One wouldn’t normally (as the editors note) think of The Stanza as a form in itself, more a meta-form. The varied use of the stanza as a poetic device was well convincing by the time I got to the end of the 19 examples.
9).Elegy (26):  W.H Auden’s (1907-73) In Memory of W.B Yeats is I suppose was the classroom text here but Child Burial by Paula Meehan (b.1955) was one of those reminders that poetry might indeed one day change the world (contra Auden’s famous line in the Yeats poem “For poetry makes nothing happen”).
10).The Pastoral (33):  The editors’ introduction was very educative, me not expecting the pastoral to be a tool of political protest against industrialisation and the centralisation of power that leads to interference in private lives. The many examples put The Pastoral poetic form in a new light.
11).The Ode (12):  We tend to think of Odes as having died out in the 18th-19th century. Well-known odes by Percy Shelley (1792-1822) and John Keats (1795-1821) are included but what’s interesting are the examples of how The Ode was reinvigorated in the 20th century, in an era where elevation of persons and objects no longer seems “possible in an age of lost faith and and broken images” (p.241). Even more so in the 21st century.
12).Open Forms (16):  The editors say they added to this final section poems which they “feel give a temporary, poignant shelter to both past and future” and they called it Open Forms to confirm their view “that poetic form is a continuum, and not a finished product” (p.260). They made good choices, too.

As long as they had avoided academic-speak, this book might have benefitted from fewer poem examples, leaving space for enlightening insights on more poems. As it is, the reader is left to enjoy the poems illustrating each form, and to figure out perceived anomalies on their own.  Working hard to understand the intricacies of the mesh between poetic forms and poem exemplars is fair enough at one level, but I feel the expertise of the editors could have been put to better use. It would have turned this interesting book into a, improved teaching tool.





coxdenis32
Strange Creature
Joined 7th Dec 2020
Forum Posts: 22

Books help me to improve concentration and speed of assimilation of information. I am sure that not e-books can teach us discipline and care. I recently read an article https://www.englishforums.com/blog/tips-to-avoid-distraction-from-studying/ about student concentration and productivity during distance learning. Books are one way to implement this upgrade.

Josh
Joshua Bond
Tyrant of Words
Palestine 40awards
Joined 2nd Feb 2017
Forum Posts: 1686

coxdenis32 said:Books help me to improve concentration and speed of assimilation of information. I am sure that not e-books can teach us discipline and care. I recently read an article https://www.englishforums.com/blog/tips-to-avoid-distraction-from-studying/ about student concentration and productivity during distance learning. Books are one way to implement this upgrade.

Thank you for commenting. Paper books are are different experience from e-books; I guess they stimulate the brain in different ways. I pencil in notes in the margins of paper books and note relevant pages with the former but e-books allow you to search keywords which I found useful, as well as making digital notes. A mix is good, I reckon.

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