A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. The Poet's Companion

This book grew out of our daily concerns as poets, and out of our work as teachers of poetry. Authors invite you to do what Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy asked: to add your light to the sum of light. Do it with patience, and love, and respect for the depth and difficulty of the task. This book is offered in that spirit.

For several years authors offered one-day intensive workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area, exploring issues and ideas with all kinds of writers. Students have been wonderfully varied: carpenters, therapists, waiters, retired persons, housewives and househusbands, photographers, word processors, systems analysts —in short, a cross-section of our community. They've ranged from absolute beginners to publishing poets with graduate degrees. All of them have had one thing in common: the desire to write poetry, and to do it well.



TOC
Introduction
SUBJECTS FOR WRITING
• Writing and Knowing
• The Family: Inspiration and Obstacle
• Death and Grief
• Writing the Erotic
• The Shadow
• Witnessing
• Poetry of Place
THE POET S CRAFT
• Images
• Simile and Metaphor
• The Music of the Line
• Voice and Style
• Stop Making Sense: Dreams and Experiments
• Meter, Rhyme, and Form
• Repetition, Rhythm, and Blues
• More Repetition: Villanelle, Pantoum, Sestina
• A Grammatical Excursion
• The Energy of Revision
THE WRITING LIFE
• Self-Doubt
• Writer's Block
• Writing in the Electronic Age
• Getting Published
TWENTY-MINUTE WRITING EXERCISES
Appendix A: Books on Poetry and Writing
Appendix B: Anthologies for Further Reading
Appendix C: Finding Markets for Your Poems
Appendix D: More Resources for Writers