Introduction -- Reading: Essentials -- Poetic aims -- Accessibility -- Biography -- Close reading -- Emotion -- Pattern and variation -- Ineffability -- Sound work -- Rhythm -- Enjambment -- The line -- The lyric -- Metaphor -- Ambiguity -- Dickinson -- Classics -- Myths -- Great books -- Whitman -- Imagery -- Roses -- Prose poetry -- Narrative -- Criticism and theory -- Pessoa -- Political poetry -- Aesthetics -- Reader response -- Classroom reading -- Poetry readings -- Reader's block -- Spirituality -- Flight -- Writing: First principles -- Form -- Sonnet -- Self-expression -- Sublimation -- Imitation -- Avant-Garde -- Translation -- Technique -- The creative writing classroom -- The workshop -- Peer review -- Revision -- Poet-teachers -- Professionalization -- Master of fine arts -- Literary magazines -- Publication -- Series, sequence -- Chapbooks, manuscript -- Collections -- Book reviews -- Writing conferences -- Culture jamming -- Poetic practices -- Procrastination -- End notes -- Epilogue.
Summary:
"Playful and serious, unforgiving and compassionate, Poetry: A Survivor's Guide offers an original take on a subject both loved and feared. In a series of provocative and inspiring propositions, the act of reading a poem is made new, and the act of writing one is made over. Questions of poetry's difficulty, pretension, and relevance are explored with insight and daring. In an age of new media and social networking, this handbook-cum-manifesto provides fresh reverence for one of our oldest forms of art"-- Provided by publisher. "A provocative and practical guide, written for students of creative writing as well as literary studies, to an art form that is both loved and feared"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.