A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver #BookReview
Book: A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry by Mary Oliver
Genre: Writing
Publisher: A Harvest Original
Publication date: 1994
Pages: 130
Source: Library
My way of celebrating National Poetry Month
Summary: A gentle teaching text with definitions, structures, and encouragement to read and write poems. From the introduction of A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver:
This book is about the things that can be learned. It is about matters of craft, primarily. It is about the part of the poem that is a written document, as opposed to a mystical document, which of course the poem is also. p. 1
Thoughts: That summary makes A Poetry Handbook sound dry, but it isn’t. Mary Oliver writes with the imagery that you would expect from a poet and humor, that you might not expect. As a librarian, I loved that we not only got words to describe sounds but the story about where she found those words (a textbook from 1860).
To talk about poems, one needs a vocabulary and A Poetry Handbook means to provide that. The book provided me with three Wondrous Words Wednesday posts during National Poetry Month:
Like most people, I suppose, I mostly ignore poetry. Except during April, when I still mostly ignore poetry but also feel guilty about it. Reading A Poetry Handbook was a delightful way to honor the month, and poetry, without feeling like I ventured into an arena that was too far-out to be fun for me.
Appeal: A Poetry Handbook is a foundational book for anyone who reads or writes poetry. But, I think, anyone who writes will find this book helpful. It most reminded me of Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, with beautiful writing that expresses a gentle, enthusiastic tone.
Challenges: A Poetry Handbook is my 8th book for the Nonfiction Reading Challenge. I intended to read 16-20 books, so I’m doing well on that one.
Have you read this book? What did you think?
One of my favorite books on poetry and the writing of it. She does so much in very few pages. Perfection.
Although I don’t want to write poetry, I still feel like a book about how to write poetry could be useful for learning how to read it. As I review books in new genres, I always feel like there’s a bit of a learning curve, figuring out what makes books in that genre good or bad for me. Reading a book like this might help me at least figure out and describe what technical aspects of poetry I like or dislike.
Sounds like a great book! I’m adding it to my to read list. Thanks Joy!
What a wonderful review! You put into words what I generally do with poetry- ignore it and then feel guilty about it during April! I do enjoy poetry when I read it and I actually joined a poetry reading challenge just to force myself to make an effort to read more, but your review encourages me to learn about poetry by reading Mary Oliver’s book. Thank you!
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