The Practice of Poetry : Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach

The Practice of Poetry is the first handbook for poets to combine poetry-writing exercises with illuminating personal essays by each contributor. The editors, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, who are themselves poets and teachers of creative writing, have collected more than ninety tests and proven exercises intended for poets enrolled in writing programs or working on their own.;First words / Ann Lauterbach -- Not-so-automatic automatic-writing exercise / Thomas Lux -- Translations: idea to image (for a group) / Carol Muske -- Dream notebook / Maxine Kumin -- Ten-minute spill / Rita Dove -- Auction: first lines (for a group) / Michael Waters -- Only connect / Sydney Lea -- Chanting the flowers off the wall (for a group) / Christopher Davis -- An emotional landscape (for a group) / Cleopatra Mathis -- A journey to nowhere / Susan Snively -- The free-lance muse / Ann Lauterbach -- One's-self, en-masse / Michael Pettit -- Intriguing objects exercise/Show and tell (for a group) / Anne Waldman -- Breaking the sentence; or, No sentences but in things / Roger Mitchell -- Five easy pieces / Richard Jackson -- As/like/finish the sentence / Linnea Johnson -- Quilting in the ditch / James McKean -- Getting at metaphor / Roger Mitchell -- A little nightmusic: the narrative metaphor / T. Alan Broughton -- Experience falls through language like water through a sieve / Susan Mitchell -- Writing the spectrum / Elizabeth Spires -- Tell by showing: an exercise technique / Roger Mitchell -- Dramatic monologue: carving the voice, carving the mask / David St. John -- The widow / Maura Stanton -- Our suits, our selves / Christopher Gilbert -- Letter poems / Robin Behn -- Tabloid tone exercise / Lee Upton -- The peasant wedding (for a group) / Mary Swander -- Estrangement and reconciliation: the self has it out with the self / Leslie Ullman -- In the waiting room / Carol Muske -- Who we were / Edward Hirsch -- Your mother's kitchen / Rita Dove -- The night Aunt Dottie caught Elvis's handkerchief when he tossed it from the stage of The Sands in Vegas / David Wojahn -- Not The Oprah Winfrey Show (for a group) / Garrett Hongo -- Extrapolation / Pamela Alexander -- Evolutions / Deborah Digges -- Afterimages: the history of a reflection / Jay Klokker -- Subject and sound: the black sheep / Kenneth Rosen -- A poem that scares you / Sandra McPherson -- Intelligence test / Alberta Turner -- Personal universe deck / Linnea Johnson -- The cut-and-shuffle poem / Jack Myers -- Finish this! / Stuart Friebert -- Twenty little poetry projects / Jim Simmerman -- Collaborative cut-up / Anne Waldman -- Found in translation / Theodore Weiss -- Homophonic translation / Charles Bernstein -- Commentary on Charles Bernstein's Homophonic translation / Pamela Alexander -- Index/table of contents exercise / Lee Upton -- Make your own system! / Jackson Mac Low -- Block, pillar, slab, and beam / Deborah Digges -- The fill-in-the-blanks or definition poem / Jack Myers -- Opposites: the attraction of titles / Stuart Dischell -- Cleave and cleave / Carol Muske -- Matthewsian invisible hinge / Pamela Alexander -- Que sera, sera and other false premises / Christopher Gilbert -- The props assist the house / James McKean -- The familiar / Alicia Ostriker -- Writing between the lines / J.D. McClatchy -- The poetry obstacle course / Marcia Southwick -- Important excitements: writing groups of related poems / Maggie Anderson -- The short narrative poem / Roland Flint -- The cat poem / Alicia Ostriker -- The seduction poem / Alicia Ostriker -- A Lewis Carroll carol / Karen Swenson -- Emotion/motion/ocean/shun / Susan Mitchell -- Patterning / Stephen Dunn -- Breathless, out of breath / Richard Jackson -- Free-verse lineation / Sharon Bryan -- A variation on Sharon Bryan's Free-verse lineation / Jack Myers -- Lyric poetry / Dana Gioia -- Shall we dance? / Richard Jackson -- Short lines and long lines / Andrew Hudgins -- Word problems and science tests / Robin Becker -- Anglo-Saxon lines / Judith Baumel -- Sapphic stanzas / Judith Baumel -- Pantoum / Judith Baumel -- Attempting a villanelle / Molly Peacock -- Ghazal: the charms of a considered disunity / Agha Shahid Ali -- The meter reader / Thomas Rabbitt -- Writer's block: an antidote / Daniel Halpern -- Smash palace / William Matthews -- Rhapsodizing repetitions / Lee Upton -- Stealing the goods / Stephen Dunn -- Jump-starting the dead poem / Lynne McMahon -- Scissors & scotch tape / Chase Twichell -- In a dark room: photography and revision / Maggie Anderson -- The party of the century (for a group) / Roger Weingarten -- The shell game / Thomas Rabbitt -- The rewrite as assignment / Stanley Plumly -- Household economy, ruthlessness, romance, and the art of hospitality / Richard Tillinghast -- Of revision / Donald Justice -- In praise of malice: thoughts on revision / Lynn Emanuel -- Waiting and silence / Susan Snively. A distinctive collection of more than 90 effective poetry-writing exercises combined with corresponding essays to inspire writers of all levels.The Practice of Poetry is the first handbook for poets to combine poetry-writing exercises with illuminating personal essays by each contributor. The editors, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, who are themselves poets and teachers of creative writing, have collected more than ninety tested and proven exercises intended for poets enrolled in writing programs or working on their own.Poetry, like any art, is best mastered through practice and, as Behn and Twichell point out in their introduction, “A good exercise serves as a scaffold... [and] helps you think about, articulate, and solve specific creative problems.” The exercises in The Practice of Poetry addresses a broad range of topics: the struggle from inspiration, transforming memory and experience into writing, the process of revision, experimenting with formal structure, as well as many others. The result is a comprehensive, distinctive collection of exciting exercises that stimulate the imagination and increase technical flexibility and control.The Practice of Poetry offers poets a chance to sample the best creative-writing techniques being taught in programs around the country and will prove an unlimited resource for any poet writing today. This Guide To Writing Poetry Combines Essays By Practicing Poets And Poetry Teachers With Exercises Covering Inspiration, The Senses, Voice, Structure, And Revision. Ladders To The Dark : The Unconscious As Gold Mine -- Image And Metaphor -- Who's Talking And Why? The Self And Its Subjects. Aspects Of Voice -- Truth In Strangeness : Accidents, Chance, And The Nonrational -- Structure, Shapeliness, And Organizing Principles -- Musical Matters : Sound, Rhythm, And The Line -- On Revision And Writer's Block. Edited By Robin Behn & Chase Twichell. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 263-283) And Index.

A distinctive collection of more than 90 effective poetry-writing exercises combined with corresponding essays to inspire writers of all levels.