Useful Books

[vampiredust]

This thread is all about books which will prove useful to poets. I've decided to start off with two excellent books that I've bought recently
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The first book is The Poetry Dictionary by John Drury (published by Writers Digest Books )

I bought this a couple of weeks ago and its one of the best poetry books that I've read. If you're serious about poetry (whether you're studying, reading or writing it) then you have to buy this. It explains all the terms used in poetry in really simple language and has over 250 poems included as well. So it's a bit like having 2 books for the price of one.

It costs $14.99 (£10.99 in the UK) and is worth every cent

Next we have:

The Art And Craft Of Poetry by Michael J Bugeja (published by Writers Digest Books)

This is a really good book about writing poetry. He explains all the different aspects of poetry from form to imagery in really simple language, there are loads of examples illustrating everything and is worth the $16.99 it costs (£12.99 in the UK)

 

[flyguy69]

This thread is a great idea, vd.

I'll plug The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry by Kim Addonizio (sigh!) and Dorianne Laux.

It is a wonderful guide to the craft of poetry and includes helpful exercises for authors at the end of each chapter. The section on erotica is particularly fun.

This book has a 4 1/2 star rating at Amazon, and the only detracting reviews seem to be from folks that bought the book for children and were surprised to find adult themes throughout. They should have read some of Kim's poetry first!

 

[Angeline]

My Favorites

1. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics by Lewis Turco. A well-written compendium of every poetic form you can imagine from ballades to rondeaus to sestinas (and many many more I'd never encountered outside this book). Turco gives instructions for how to write each one and shows famous (and often his own) examples of them. It's a great book whether you want to practice writing form poetry yourself or simply learn the forms and see who has written them.

2. On the Level Everyday: Selected Talks on Poetry and the Art of Living by Ted Berrigan. Lectures on the craft of poetry (from the sublime to the ridiculous) by Berrigan (1934-1983), who was one of his generation's (second generation, New York School) most respected poets. It gives advice mixed with humor and common sense about how to write poetry every day.

3. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory edited by JA Cuddon. This is comprehensive and covers all the literary genres (not just poetry), and discusses literary movements and criticism as well as technical terms. The current (fourth) edition has less info on meter and verse than earlier editions, so if you're interested in form poetry you'd probably be better off with the third edition (or the Turco book). The book is used in many literature courses in U.S. colleges and universities, so there's a good chance of finding an earlier edition in a used bookstore.

4. The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White. This is simply the best book around on how to produce error-free writing. It offers rules on style, composition and form--everything from commonly misspelled words to how to use punctuation correctly to basic grammar (like subject-verb agreement and parallelism). It's simply written and easy to understand. If you want to understand the elementary rules of good writing, there is no better book in my opinion.

Poets Market. A new edition is published every year. Poets Market provides a list of publishers (mainly in the U.S.) of poetry. The current edition has something like 1,800 poetry publishers and gives addresses, submission guidelines, tells how open a publisher is to accepting stuff from new poets, etc. It has interviews with famous poets on how to write and be published and information on chapbook publishers and contests. If you want to publish your poetry, this book will make your life a lot easier.