About This Book 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Reading and Understanding Poetry 5

Chapter 1: Knowing Poetry When You See It 7

Poetry as Art and Exploration 8

Why Do People Write Poetry? 9

Creating an intense emotional experience 10

Drawing attention to something real 12

Bringing Poetry into Your Life 13

Online is just fine 13

Checking out libraries 15

Browsing through bookstores 16

Attending readings 17

Writing Poetry 18

Becoming a poet 18

Keeping a poetry journal 19

Chapter 2: Reading Poetry Aloud 21

Why You Should Read Poems Aloud 21

Good Habits for Good Reading 23

Having the right tools handy 23

Reading silently first 24

Noting surprises and unfamiliar words 24

Finding an engaged, conversational tone 25

Resisting the urge to rush 25

Pausing for power 27

Paying attention to line-endings 28

Treating white space as time 29

Doing it more than once 31

Chapter 3: Identifying Subject, Tone, and Narrative 33

Understanding Subject and Tone 34

Subject: A natural starting point 34

Tone: It’s got attitude 35

Reading for subject and tone 38

Figuring Out a Poem’s Narrative 39

Speaker: The person we’re listening to 39

Setting: Knowing where you are 41

Situation: Circumstances and their victims 42

Plot: What goes on 42

Character: What kind of person would do a thing like that? 42

Chapter 4: Tuning in to Language 45

Understanding Figurative Language 46

Opening the Poet’s Figurative Toolbox 48

Symbols: When A stands for B, which brings in C 48

Similes: My love is like a can of tuna 52

Metaphors: My love is a can of tuna 53

Allusions: If you know, you know 55

Music: What You Hear, Feel, and See 56

Orchestrating sound 57

Recognizing the varieties of rhyme 59

Feeling rhythm and measuring meter 61

Shape and flow: Visual rhythm 65

Chapter 5: Practicing the Art of Interpretation 67

Reading for Discovery 68

Sense: Getting direct and literal 68

Music: Sounds and rhythms that lead to meaning 73

Speculating as You Read 77

Mastering Speculation 78

Understanding the literal 79

Getting at what’s implied 80

Speculating about what’s implied 80

Searching for the Subject 81

Tuning In to Tone 82

Being Alive to Language 83

Following the Music 83

Considering Narrative Elements 85

Interpreting “The Knot” by Susan Stewart 87

Part 2: An Intelligent Hustle Through Poetic History 89

Chapter 6: Connecting with Poems from the Past 91

Gathering the Tools You Need 92

Understanding Older Poetry 93

Meeting the poet 93

Discovering the poet’s life and times 95

Mastering unfamiliar language 98

Reading Older Poetry: Three Basics 102

Chapter 7: From Enheduanna to the Golden Ages 105

The Pre-Homeric Period (3000 bc–1000 bc) 106

Mesopotamian poetry 106

Egyptian poetry 107

The beginnings of poetry in India 107

The Biblical and Homeric Periods (1000 bc–400 bc) 110

Biblical poetry 110

Homeric poetry 111

The beginnings of Chinese poetry 113

The Archaic and Classical Periods (750 bc–ad 476) 113

Greek poetry 113

Latin poetry 115

Late Antiquity and Golden Ages (ad 476–1000) 116

The Manyoshu and Japanese poetry 116

The poetry of India 117

Arabic poetry 117

China: The T’ang Dynasty 118

Old English 119

Chapter 8: The Middle Ages through the 18th Century 121

Poetry of the Middle Ages (1000–1450) 122

Arabic and Persian verse — and the Rūmī supernova 123

Chinese and Japanese poetry 126

The European Renaissance (1450–1674) 127

The English Renaissance 127

Poetry on three continents 127

The 18th Century 129

Reason, science, and a changing world: The English Enlightenment 129

Japan: The haiku tradition continues 130

Chapter 9: Poetry During the Industrial Revolution 131

The Romantic Period 131

The Victorian Period 134

The Symbolist movement 135

American poetry: Whitman and Dickinson 136

Shiki and the New Style in Japan 138

Chapter 10: The Century of Poetry 139

The Modern Era (1901–1945) 140

Rabindranath Tagore 140

William Butler Yeats 141

Ezra Pound 142

Hilda Doolittle 143

Marianne Moore 143

T.S Eliot 144

Marina Tsvetaeva 145

André Breton 146

Pablo Neruda 146

Léopold Sédar Senghor 147

The Postmodern Era (1945–1989) 148

Poetry from the Spanish-speaking world 151

Women’s voices 153

Experimental poetry 154

Performance poetry 157

The Global Era (1989–2001) 160

Chapter 11: Poetry in the Digital Age. 163

New Voices and Viewpoints 164

Collaborative Poetry 165

Poetry and the Other Arts 166

Translation 166

New and Old Forms 167

Chill subs and Other Poetry Communities Online 169

Part 3: Writing Poetry and Finding Community 173

Chapter 12: Calling the Muse 175

How to Live If You Want to Be a Poet 176

Reading Like a Poet 176

Writing Like a Poet 177

Finding the right time and place to write 177

Recognizing the creative urge 179

Empty page, full imagination: Getting started 180

Keeping a journal (again!) 181

Moving from journal entry to poem 182

Choosing subjects 185

Rewriting until it hurts a lot better 186

From “City Bus” to “City Bus”: A case study in revision 187

Getting Connected to the World of Poetry 190

Chapter 13: Working with Traditional Forms of Verse 193

Ballads 194

Psalms 195

Sonnets 196

Ghazals 200

Haiku and Tanka 201

Chapter 14: Writing Open-Form Poetry 203

Working Toward a Definition 203

What open-form poetry is 205

What open-form poetry isn’t 206

Knowing What Makes It Poetry 206

Using Open Forms in Your Own Poetry 209

Going for the breath: Framing individual lines 209

Treating the page as a field 211

Chapter 15: Writing Exercises and Prompts for Poets 217

Making Your Journal Your Office 218

Trying a Journal Exercise 218

Spotting and Breaking Habits 220

Using Description 221

Unleashing Divergent Thinking 221

Mining descriptive texts to find your own way of writing 222

Experimenting with different forms 222

Starting with a prose essay 222

Rewriting well-known texts 222

Pulling from a grab-bag of ideas 223

Using techniques of chance and collage 223

Mistranslating (on purpose) 224

Thinking about transitions 225

Getting ideas by taking a walk 225

Using language from one subject to write about another 226

From Poems for the Writing: Three Prompts, Poems, and Processes 226

“The unanswerable letter”; Response by Karen Chase 226

“Bibliomancy”; Response by Luray Gross 228

“Fibonacci Poem”: Response by Don Riggs 231

Revising Your Poetry 232

Hiding half of your poem from sight 232

Reworking poems you don’t like 233

Collaborating with Other Writers 233

Chapter 16: Going Public 235

Starting a Reading or Writing Group 235

Getting started 236

Discovering ways to spend your meetings 236

Reading Your Poetry in Public 237

Readings for everybody 238

Open mics 242

Poetry slams 243

Participating in Your Local Poetry Community: Good Old Analog! 245

Being an Entrepreneurial Poet 248

Eyeballs and ears 248

The post-Pandemic poetry world 252

Finding Resources and Community 256

Chapter 17: Getting Published 259

Submitting Your Poetry to Lit Mags 260

Knowing when you’re ready 260

Following the Poetry For Dummies action plan for poetry market research 262

Submitting your poetry 271

Keeping a submissions journal 276

Pursuing Other Kinds of Publication 277

Collections and contests 278

Chapbooks, pamphlets, and broadsides 278

Self-publishing in print 279

Part 4: the Part of Tens 285

Chapter 18: Ten Poems Worth Memorizing 287

Chapter 19: Ten Love Poems 295

Part 5: Appendixes 303

Appendix A: Glossary 305

Appendix B: The Poetry For Dummies Reading List 315

The Pre-Homeric Period 316

The Biblical Period 316

The Archaic and Classical Periods 316

Late Antiquity and Golden Ages 317

The Middle Ages 317

The Renaissance 318

The Enlightenment and the Eighteenth Century 319

Romantic Poetry, the Victorian Period, Symbolism, and Whitman and Dickinson 319

The Modern Era 320

Postmodernism 320

The Global Era 321

The Digital Era 321

Modern and Contemporary Poetry 322

Permissions 323

Index 331