Poetry

With Poetry: A Writers’ Guide and Anthology, it is as if Huey and Kaneko have been looking over my shoulder at my class notes and have built a streamlined textbook specifically to meet my needs. Collected in one volume are chapters of practical advice and explanation about poetic elements (including a periodic table!), along with an amazing, truly up-to-date anthology of example poems. Most appropriate for students new to poetry, this book will serve as a solid review text for more advanced students as well. * Sandy Longhorn, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, Arkansas Writers MFA Program, University of Central Arkansas, USA *
For a while now, many of us have seen the need to redefine – and hopefully to reinvigorate – the teaching of poetry writing. Amorak Huey and W. Todd Kaneko, by stressing “practice rather than interpretation,” have made a poetry writing textbook that dances in the mind, even as it takes all of us back to the pleasure and hard work of our art. They are generous with the “elements” of poetry that animate their own teaching. Their illustrative anthology at the end may be the best collection of “contemporary classic” poems currently available. This is a book we – all of us, from beginners to wizened masters – could use in the classroom or simply sit down and read. * Keith Taylor, A.L. Becker Collegiate Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, University of Michigan, USA *
“Write a poem for your future self to find,” cajole Huey and Kaneko, the editors of this accessible and generative textbook, the first in a long time to be a great poetry primer, a fine anthology, and a useful encyclopedia. Elements, modes, images, surprise – the concepts and their applications are all here, detailed and methodically presented, the clear writing always a pleasure. Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology should be the go-to book for teachers and students alike, all of whom may well be writing to find their future selves. * Alan Michael Parker, Douglas C. Houchens Professor of English, Davidson College, USA *