Poetry Writing Instructors Ed - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0844203440 ISBN 13: 9780844203447

Synopsis

Make reading and modeling an integral part of your creative writing class with Poetry Writing: Theme and Variations. Students will learn both the style and the substance of poetry by modeling their writing on professional poems. Each chapter opens with one of fifty poems from a distinguished group of twentieth-century American writers, including Robert Frost, Rita Dove, Mary Tall Mountain, and Gary Soto. The text is organized chronologically by the poets' year of birth to help students see how history has affected the subjects and styles of poetry. The poetic elements and topics occurring in each of the model poems are discussed. A student is response is presented, allowing writers to see how other beginning poets respond to the models and encouraging them in their own writing. The "Your Turn" exercises prompt writers toward a response of their own based on the style, subject, or elements of the professional and student model poems.

About this title

From the Author

From the Preface:
At its core, the book is an anthology of fifty poems, representing some of the best poetry written by Americans during this century. The poems cover a range of historical periods and styles: from the supple blank verse of Robert Frost’s "Birches" to Lyn Hejinian’s Language-oriented prose poem, "When one travels, one might ‘hit’ a storm," from Frank O’Hara’s off-the-cuff observations about Lana Turner in "Lana Turner Has Collapsed!" to Wendy Rose’s denunciation of cultural imperialism in "For the White Poets Who Would Be Indian."

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The organization of Poetry Writing is simple enough. Each chapter begins with a brief overview of the sort of poem you will be asked to write and a discussion of the model poem. Then there is a bridge section linking that poem with a student response. Important literary terms are often introduced in this section. These terms (also included in the glossary at the end) are discussed in conjunction with either the model poem or the student response, but they are rarely the chapter’s focus. One of Poetry Writing’s central assumptions is that, while it is important for you to learn some of the basic technical aspects of poetry, it is even more important that you write poems. My experience tells me that textbooks that linger over minutiae tend to turn students away from poetry. Therefore, you are generally asked to look at the rhetorical, rather than the formal, emphasis of the model poem: what it is saying rather than how. The final section of each chapter is entitled "Your Turn." This section explains the writing prompt in more detail and guides you towards a response of your own.

The chapters are arranged chronologically by the model poet’s year of birth. This is to help give you a sense of the development of American poetry in this century. The appendix, "A Brief Introduction to 20th-Century American Poetry," also provides information about the poets in the book; it attempts to place them in context and to indicate some of their most important publications and awards.

About this edition

• ISBN 10: 0844203440
• ISBN 13: 9780844203447
• Binding: Paperback