A Poetry Handbook

Mary Oliver

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

1994

130 páginas

4h 20m

ISBN-13: 9780156724005

Offers advice on reading and writing poetry, and discusses imitation, sound, the line, poem forms, free verse, diction, imagery, revision, and workshops

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.