Richard Wakefield suggested, on a different thread, that we compile a bibliography of books, and I thought we might start a thread on guides and handbooks. The following I keep by the computer:

1. 'A Poetry Handbook' Mary Oliver

2. The Art and Craft of Poetry' Michael J Bugeja

Goes into more depth than Oliver's book. A good text to follow Oliver's

3. 'A Poets Guide to Poetry' Mary Kinzie

Much more detailed and thought provoking. It's slow going - I'm about a third of the way through - and it's going to take numerous re-reads to get everything out of it.

4. 'The Poetry Dictionary' John Drury

Just that - a comprehensive dictionary of terms and phrases

5. 'The Book of Forms' Lewis Turco

A comprehensive listing of metrical forms. The only one I haven't found in it is the ovillejo, unless it's listed under another name.

6. 'A Dictionary of Homophones' Leslie Presson

Thought it might be helpful for light verse and wordplay

7. 'Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English' Oxford University Press

8. 'World Poetry' Norton & Co. - Clifton Fadiman General Editor

Nice breakdown of works by era and geographical location. 1200 pgs of poetry.

Anybody else want to add to the list?




[This message has been edited by Robert Swagman (edited October 30, 2002).]

From the point of view of generating ideas, finding themes, etc, I would strongly recommend these books.

Poetry Writing -Theme and Variations
By David Starkey.
50 published poems, with analysis and examples of student poems on the same themes, and exercises.

In The Palm Of Your Hand - the Poet's Portable Workshop
By Steve Kowit.
Deals with music and metaphor, experiment and tradition, perennial themes etc.

The Practice of Poetry - Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach.
By Robin Behn & Chase Twichell
Dozens of exercises, ways of getting started or generating an idea, each one by a different poet/teacher and using widely differing approaches.



[This message has been edited by oliver murray (edited October 31, 2002).]

Here are several that I use frequently:

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (slow going, but authoritative and comprehensive)

Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Random House (a wonderful source of color, and funny)

The Origins of English Words, by Joseph Shipley (instructive and entertaining, providing, for example, the unsuspected etymological link between "orgy" and "surgeon")

A Handbook to Literature, by C. Hugh Holman (much quicker than Princeton)

The Oxford Companion to English Literature / The Oxford Companion to American Literature (handy for reminding yourself of works and writers you've nearly forgotten or don't want to admit to never having read)

Two other suggestions--

All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing by Timothy Steele. (A comprehensive and interesting guide to meter by one of the most accomplished living metrical poets. Or skip the guide, and simply read his poetry collections Sapphics Against Anger and The Color Wheel.)

The Poet's Companion by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux. (A fun beginning poetry guide, more geared to free verse, by two award-winning poets. Or again, skip the guide, and read Addonizio's free verse collection Tell Me. For my money, Tell Me, with its intense, stripped-bare honesty and its dramatic craft, has more memorable poems--including "Glass," "At Moss Beach," "Prayer," "For Desire" and "Theodicy"--than any other book of free verse. Eliot and Jeffers waded gallantly into depression, too. But they pretty much got mired and then nobly gritted their teeth as they sank. Kim bursts out the other side, still very much alive!)

Dear Jerry

I have mentioned Derek Attridge’s Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995) several times before. In my view it is the best exposition by far of how English metres work.

The other resource any poet with a serious and long-term commitment to writing needs (or at least needs ready access to) is the Oxford English Dictionary. The full edition is, of course, available on a searchable CD.

Clive Watkins

For the sheer fun of it, I'd add John Hollander's Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse and, on the line and its sounds, Robert Pinsky's, The Sounds of Poetry. For a superb collection of poems and discussions of technical terms, Sam Gwynn's Poetry, in the Longman Pocket Anthology series.

Cheers,

------------------
Ralph

Another one to add to the list.

The Ghost of Meter - Culture and Prosody in American Free Verse

Annie Finch
University of Michigan Press

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned a thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary.

I have a contemporary Webster's New World Rhyming Dictionary which I use regularly, but my real secret weapon is a dog-eared copy of Walker's Rhyming Dictionary, which was printed in England in, I think, the twenties or thirties (it is undated) and I purchased second hand at the old Strand in Manahattan in the fifties. It describes itself as a Dictionary..."..in which the whole language is arranged according to its terminations". Basically it is a backwards dictionary (I don't think these exist any more) in which words are in reverse alphabetical order, and while it is a pain-in-the-ass to use - you have to think of all the possible word endings that could fit your rhyme on your own - the volume of words it contains dwarfs any other rhyming dictionary I have seen, and it is a great source of ideas.

Similarly, I have a number of contemporary thesaurii(?) but the one that turns me on is a fifty-plus year old Roget's - again from the Strand - that is held together with scotch tape.

Michael Cantor



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited December 18, 2002).]

To Mary Oliver's "Handbook," add her "Rules for theDance," 1998.

John Frederick Nims' "Western Wind, an Introduction to Poetry," Third Edition, 1992 is a standard. I t includes an anthology of exemplary poems that runs over 200 pages.

"The Making of a Poem" (a Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms) by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland is good for the study of received forms...plenty of examples.

The title of Paul Fussell's MAJOR prosody slips my mind (my copy's out), but it's, perhaps, the most demanding prosody I've read. About a dozen poets over the past 500 years pass achieve his standards.

Bob

Bob:
Fussell's book is "Poetic Meter and Poetic Form," I believe.
I also use C. Hugh Holman's "A Handbook of Literary Terms" quite a bit, and it has helpful references to more exhaustive sources.
As this list of suggestions grows, I think it's a good idea to say again that reading ABOUT poetry must always be secondary -- important, but secondary. Reading poetry itself is primary, and reading it for pleasure, reading it aloud, listening to other people read it. That's a big advantage of the anthologies.
RPW

One of my favorite anthologies, which I keep checking out at the local library, is entitled 'World Poetry'. It's back in the library now, so I don't have the information on it handy, but it provides a huge sampling of poetry, and it's grouped by era and geographical references. An excellent indicator on how poetry has evolved over the centuries. Next time I check it out, I'll include the relevant information here.

Curtis

I didn't mention thesaurus or rhyming dictionaries because online resources are quicker to use, for me, anyway.
http://www.rhymer.com/ does a rhyme search by several features, and is free. There is a more comprehensive version available for more serious users that is fee-based, but even the free version is fast, flexible and rather comprehensive.

This is an extremely valuable thread. Let's not let it die.

Bob

Jerry,

How did I pop into this thread?

Attridge's Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction is not far from my desk, although I don't use it as much as I should. Clive once mentioned another Attridge book, a more advanced study I think, but I don't remember the title.

I should use my thesaurus more than I do: Roget's International Thesaurus, 5^th edition It's the best I've found. An index in the back of the thesaurus will direct one toward broadly inclusive entries; and every entry separates the "quality" or "content" of an entry into different grammatical forms--noun, verb, adjective, adverb. So if I look up "unimportance," for instance, I'm given 10 entries w/ multiple suggestions each for a noun form, 5 for a verb form, 7 for an adjective form, 1 for an adverb form, and 3 for phrasal forms--each of which has multiple suggestions.

The American Heritage Dictionary, electronic "talking" version is handy. For just $10, you can buy and install this on your system, and you'll never need to wonder how certain odd words are pronounced, because it pronounces them for you! Plus, it allows you to search for rhymes, etc., via wildcard variables. (A question mark substitutes for a wildcard letter; an asterisk substitutes for a string of letters.)


Per Richard's suggestion, I have anthologies and collections of poetry near my desk also. I also keep the Bible handy, plus the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, Plato and Montaigne...(The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame, is invaluable inspiration--having these other sources nearby is also great for breaking up the monotony of writer's block when it happens during the creation of a poem...)

The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory is quite interesting and suggestive, although I've not found it to be 100% accurate and inclusive. Literary Theories: a Reader & Guide, ed. Julian Wolfreys (NYU Press) is also interesting reading but has never helped me with a specific poem... Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science, ed. N. Katherine Hayles (University of Chicago Press) is interesting to the n^th degree and also quite suggestive. I also keep The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, nearby: I can't recommend it enough.

Plus, having your own cd collection of music nearby can't hurt.

Lately I've been reading Auden's The Dyer's Hand which is quite fascinating--but his prose is not nearly as good as his poetry. He leaps about; but you'd find a dry humor in his consideration American Poetry and elsewhere through this colleciton of his lectures and essays. (Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is written in much better prose; plus, he and Auden often disagree in their considerations of various Shakespeare plays!)

Of course, these aren't all books on prosody, or "handbooks;" but I've taken a different route, preferring "meter-making arguments" over dry technique. It's good to know technique, but best to find it in successful poems rather than in handbooks. Imo. The perusal and absorption of ideas is the best use for others' writings...

C.

To further a point mentioned by Richard, and after re-reading a bit more of Auden's The Dyer's Hand today...well, I ran across the following in Auden's essay "Making, Knowing and Judging"--perhaps the most interesting essay in the book. Before I post it, however, I'll include this from Auden's foreword to that book: "A poem must be a closed system, but there is something, in my opinion, lifeless, even false, about a systematic criticism."

<dir>from "Making, Knowing and Judging"

If poetry were in great public demand so that there were overworked professional poets, I can imagine a system under which an established poet would take on a small number of apprentices who would begin by changing his blotting paper, advance to typing his manuscripts and end up by ghostwriting poems for him which he was too busy to start or finish. [Here, think Frank Lloyd Wright, lol.] The apprentices might really learn something for, knowing that he would get the blame as well as the credit for their work, the Master would be extremely choosy about his apprentices and do his best to teach them all he knew.

In fact, of course, a would-be poet serves his apprenticeship in a library. This has its advantages. Though the Master is deaf and dumb and gives neither instruction nor criticism, the apprentice can choose any Master he likes, living or dead, the Master is available at any hour of the day or night, lessons are all for free, and his passionate admiration of his Master will ensure that he work hard to please him.

To please means to imitate and it is impossible to do a recognizable imitation of a poet without attending to every detail of his diction, rhythms and habits of sensibility. In imitating his Master, the apprentice acquires a Censor, for he learns that, no matter how he finds it, by inspiration, by potluck or after hours of laborious search, there is only one word or rhythm or form that is the right one, for the apprentice is ventriloquizing, but he has got away from poetry-in-general; he is learning how a poem is written. Later in life, incidentally, he will realize how important is the art of imitation, for he will not infrequently be called upon to imitate himself.

My first Master was Thomas Hardy, and I think I was very lucky in my choice. He was a good poet, perhaps a great one, but not too good. Much as I loved him, even I could see that his diction was often clumsy and forced and that a lot of his poems were plain bad. This gave me hope where a flawless poet might have made me despair...[etc.]</dir>

I would like to add a note, that people do differ in the way they learn. Personally, I learn quickly by studying theory and applying it. Of course, I have read poetry over the decades, but it wasn't until I began studying theory that I could figure out why something made me react as it did, then I knew how to emulate it (to a degree) and could experiment. Once I have a basic understanding of the theory, I can read a piece and feel the undercurrents I was blind to before.

But that's just me.

Jerry,

I should have responded sooner. True, w/o the dedication of some scholars of prosody, I'd have very little clue about what "happens" in most of my favorite poems. I'd sense all the factors, of course, but without much understanding.

It is interesting to note that as many prosodies exist as opinions on religion or philosophy. (Or so it seems to me.) The oft-suggested book by Mary Oliver makes the comment that formalist poetry cannot achieve the rhythms and sound of speech, for instance--a "fact" I do not believe, although formalist verse often presents normal speech somewhat deceptively. (I.e., behind the speech is a more rigid structure than that allowed by various free verse doctrines.)

I also was a big fan of Judson Jerome's The Poet's Handbook--it introduces aspects of meter and sound quite well--but have since given up my great admiration--it does not go beyond a cursory examination of various sonic devices, and makes hash of notions of strict meter.

But my growth as a poet--far from being finished, I might add--has led me from one to another and from there to another concept of prosody, until the demarcations of various "schools" have clouded my own perception. I'm not much of a fan of "voice-as-one-defining-method" of a poet, but I'm lately confused about where I want to take my poetry once I've begun it: where/what is my own "voice"; or, which voice for this particular poem? Critic X says this is the way poetry should reach an audience; Critic Y says, "No, follow this route." Etc.

Quite possibly, the old advice is best: I can be led to the river, but I must be the one who decides to drink from it, or how to cross it, or whether or not I should jump into it. This presents all kinds of problems.

From a very young age, I've been like I have imagined many other poets to be: in love with language and ideas. Whitman's admission that he loved the sound of his own name & babbled it incessantly in so many different ways, applies to me also. So a specialized, even if sometimes neurotic, understanding of language seems to me to be at least as valuable as the promulgated prosodies of the world. It is good to have multiple palettes, or different hues, presented to me, but my own poetry cannot follow fully the paths others have cut through the briar patches of the world.

I have visited various websites where the participants rarely mention the word "prosody" or Steele et al. and been shocked by poetry that was quite "fresh" and even inspired--which suggests to me that our own decisions at the river's edge are much more significant than how we have arrived at that river. (At those sites, I have however noticed frequent mention of established poets' poetry.) I have often thought that a firm understanding of language is the best foundation, even if we sometimes also get our materials from other poets and/or critics.

blah blah blah. Etc.

Curtis.

--BTW, I listened to a taped interview of Auden once, online, in which at one point he was asked whether some subjects have ever been beyond his reach...or something to that effect. He answered that "No," no subjects were impossible, but at various times in his life he realized that he was not yet at an age where he could handled certain subjects. He noted that this realization--that he was not yet ready for certain subjects--was, in hindsight, what had helped him to become a better poet. My point being: even the study of prosody cannot help the poet beyond a certain point, where personal growth might be the necessary next step.

Curtis

The martial arts instructor I learned most from once said, 'Many paths, one mountain'.

I don't consider myself far up the path of poetry, but I agree there are many elements of equal importance. I hope to attack each one with the same vigor I'm currently applying to meter. That's just the part of the mountain I'm on now - the foundation (or foothills, if you will).

As you said, it must come in stages. Sometimes, too, we get stuck on a plateau and feel we can go no higher, then we round a corner and behold new heights.

Finally, I think the day comes when the writer performs without conscious thought of the elements - and that's when 'voice' unfolds. I eagerly await the day *grin*.

I currently think I'm writing my best in the gray area between FV and metrical - I don't think about form or structure - but concentrate on sound and metaphor. It's amazing though, I'm starting to see the substructure automatically forming itself without conscious thought. It's still an effort, however, to attempt playing against the meter, which I believe is the art of meter.

Perhaps, too, we've beaten the metrical horse into the virtual ground.

Why don't you start a thread on language? It's starting to interest me, and I can use a break from the metrical studies for a while.

Jerry
(the same one)

[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited December 29, 2002).]

Lol, Jerry, I'm not sure I can consider poetry to be a single mountain--unless it is so broad it might as well be called "the world," in which case your martial arts instructor said something quite profound indeed.

"Language" is such a broad topic, isn't it? I should have said "semiotics," perhaps, or just limited it to the word "syntax." And add a dash of "rhetoric." Nuance is so often false, these days...if it is even present. Alas/alack! I'm not certain I want to jump into that discussion, just yet.

I'm also not convinced that "playing against the meter" is the "art of meter," although it often plays a part...

But I'm kinda drifting, so I'll end this post here.

C.

Thought I'd kick this post back to the top, in case people want to add further listings. I think it's an important thread.

It focuses mostly on free verse, but I found this one very inspiring a few years back when I first started: Edward Hirsch, How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry (Harcourt Brace & Company).

The other resource any poet with a serious and long-term commitment to writing needs (or at least needs ready access to) is the Oxford English Dictionary. The full edition is, of course, available on a searchable CD.

--Clive Watkins

I fully agree. My full edition is my favorite object. It is the full spectrum of the media. Words are consciousness. You can't think without words. Try it. (You can build something, dance, paint, play music, or other such stuff without words, but words soon become necessary somehow.)

TJ

I have many books listing rhetorical tropes and other literary terms, but what I'd really like is a reverse dictionary of them. I can't quite imagine how it would be laid out. The trouble is, I'm only rarely out to find the meaning of, say, "chiasmus" or "hesteron proteron," but I frequently stumble across some little nuance or trick and want to find out what it's called, its history, other examples.
I know, I know, such a thing is traditionally called a "professor." Unfortunately, I am one and hence need a prop to help me maintain the facade more effectively.
Anybody ever seen such a device?
RPW

Richard

Michael Cantor wrote above:


I'm surprised that nobody mentioned a thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary.
I have a contemporary Webster's New World Rhyming Dictionary which I use regularly, but my real secret weapon is a dog-eared copy of Walker's Rhyming Dictionary, which was printed in England in, I think, the twenties or thirties (it is undated) and I purchased second hand at the old Strand in Manahattan in the fifties. It describes itself as a Dictionary..."..in which the whole language is arranged according to its terminations". Basically it is a backwards dictionary (I don't think these exist any more) in which words are in reverse alphabetical order, and while it is a pain-in-the-ass to use - you have to think of all the possible word endings that could fit your rhyme on your own - the volume of words it contains dwarfs any other rhyming dictionary I have seen, and it is a great source of ideas.

Try www.alibris.com They can locate many out-of-print, used or rare books. I find a lot of rare collector books through them.

Richard

I just did a search at Alibris, and they have a dozen of the Walkers, from $7 to around $90, depending on the listed condition. They're trustworthy, with their own quality control checks.

Correction: they have eleven. I just bought one.

[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited November 21, 2003).]

Although I have a couple of rhyming dictionaries, that one sounds like a good investment. The "dictionary" I had in mind, though, isn't for finding rhymes, but for finding the names of various tropes that one comes across but can't identify. For example, say you come across "I gave her the ring and she gave me the finger": the book somehow helps you identify the trope as an example of syllepsis, and then gives you an explanation and further examples. It would be sort of a "Wildflowers of the Western United States," but for rhetorical tropes. As I say, I don't have a clue to how it could be arranged. A big table or nomenclature chart? Maybe some enterprising 'spherian will take on the task of devising it.
RPW

I've lately developed an interest in poetic translation due to Eratosphere, so I hope it's alright to nudge discussion in that direction. Are there reference books for and about the translation process that you translators find particularly useful?

By the way, I keep Patterns of Poetry by Miller Williams next to my Turco. It provides alternative examples, and there's a bit of variance in the forms included.

[This message has been edited by Mark Blaeuer (edited November 24, 2003).]

Thought I'd bump this one up, since many haven't seen it and there are probably updates to be added.

And no one really answered Mark's question...

A few new additions:

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics [Preminger and Brogan].

One of my current favorites, ever since I found it. I'll just pick a topic and read. It's one I recommend to people who don't know the difference between prose and poetry. There are 1383 pages of 'difference'.

Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End, Barbara Hernstein Smith.

Missing Measures: Modern Poetry and the Revolt Against Meter, Timothy Steele.

This one explains my straying from strict meter *grin*




[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited October 04, 2004).]