A Poetry Handbook - A Prose Guide To Understanding And Writing Poetry

Mary Oliver

Ecco

1994

130 páginas

4h 20m

ISBN-10: 0156724006

“Mary Oliver would probably never admit to anything so grandiose as an effort to connect the conscious mind and the heart (that’s what she says poetry can do), but that is exactly what she accomplishes in this stunning little handbook.”—Los Angeles Times

From the beloved and acclaimed poet, an ultimate guide to writing and understanding poetry.

With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind—a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

Resenhas (1)

5 (Perfeito)

Great insights, useful methods, and a deep dive into meaning

Mary Oliver?s ?A poetry handbook? is an excellent 101-course type reader that explores important and essential aspects of poetry and writing. Her takes on the making of poetry and her openness to the fresh poetic styles in vogue account for a book that opens creative space and offers writers useful tools and food for thought.

To Oliver, poems exist for the mapping of mysteries and in that sense, their meaning can?t ever be fully grasped or narrowed down. The fact that rereading and hearing poems repeatedly can arouse different interpretations and insights, makes their very fabric something alive and fluid.

The poet-teacher also uses poems to illustrate some of her main points in this book, which suggests that in order to write good poetry one must read poetry. Although the ?Sound? section is quite straightforward and lacks a little in preparation for the reader not familiar with metrics, Mary Oliver?s work successfully illustrates that poems never sound exactly alike and that sound is a key aspect of poems and an important lens through which to observe them. As a poet myself, I got most of my gems from the sections on free verse onwards. Oliver?s book is a great reminder of the importance of rapport and solitude when writing. It?s mainly a reminder of how one must explore every possible creative path in the exercise of writing, and keep at it.