The Art and Craft of Poetry [Hardcover]

Michael Bugeja (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 1994

This book is about the making of a poet - you. It's written in a particular order to help you develop both yourself as a poet and your poetic works. You begin with a chapter on generating ideas for poems and end with a chapter on the total poem, summarizing key elements in the creation of publishable verse. You'll find three sections in this book: . Journals and Genres: In this section you'll learn how to conceive ideas for poems based on life experience, research and familiarity with traditional genres of poetry. You'll learn how poets use journals to keep track of ideas, and how to develop your ability to contemplate, observe and discover - skills that make superior poets. When you've finished the exercises in this section, you'll have as many as one hundred ideas for poems. Tools of the Trade: Here you'll learn the basics of craft. There are six chapters that focus on voice, line, stanza, title, meter and rhyme. At the end of each chapter you'll write a draft of a poem, focusing on skills learned in that chapter. Formats and Forms: In this section you'll learn about modes and methods of expression, from narrative, lyric and dramatic verse (the traditional formats) to poems in fixed, free and sequence styles (the traditional forms). Here is where you begin work on your drafts, identifying which categories they fall into, studying them and then improving upon them. You'll find dozens of poems by some of the world's most talented contemporary writers. Many of these poets also provide comments about the craft of writing poetry, which adds yet another level of instruction. Also included are poems of great English and American writers, along with work by the author. By including his ownwork, Bugeja is able to illustrate the process of writing poetry in a unique, step-by-step format. What's more, three levels of exercises at the end of each chapter help you generate poems and, ultimately, chapbooks and books. Everything you need to put you on the path of becoming a

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael J. Bugeja has published a dozen collections of poetry and two texts, The Art and Craft of Poetry and Poet's Guide. He directs the journalism school at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Writers Digest Books; 1st edition (February 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898796334
• ISBN-13: 978-0898796339
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,767,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Bugeja is a professor and the director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University of Science and Technology. He is the author of 22 books, including Living Ethics Across Media Platforms (2008) and Interpersonal Divide: the Search for Community in a Technological Age (2005), both published by Oxford University Press and both winners of the Clifford G. Christians Award for Research in Media Ethics.

Dr. Bugeja's commentaries on media ethics and technology have been cited internationally in such outlets as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Guardian (UK), Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada), Die Welt (Germany), China Daily, The International Herald Tribune (France), The Ecologist (UK), The Futurist and the Associated Press as well as online news editions of CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

An prolific magazine freelancer writer, Dr. Bugeja publishes frequently in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The Quill, Editor & Publisher, The Futurist, The Ecologist and other online and print publications. He has served as contributing editor and/or correspondent for several magazines, including Writer's Digest, where he also was poetry columnist for several years. His Art & Craft of Poetry (Writer's Digest Press) is a classic, with 50,000 copies sold since 1994. In addition, Dr. Bugeja is a creative writer and winner of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship with publications in Harper's, Poetry, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, and Sewanee Review, among others.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best text on writing poetry, September 9, 2004

By 

Joan Mazza "Author, speaker, poet" (Mineral, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art and Craft of Poetry (Paperback)

I've read many books on writing poetry and Bugeja's ART AND CRAFT OF POETRY is the best among them. He offers the clearest explanations of how meter, line length, and rhyme influence tone and meaning in a poem. His section on forms is absolutely the most comprehensive, explaining how to make formal verse into GOOD poetry beyond simply following the technical rules. Suggestions include writing the envoi first in a sestina, shaping meaning in a pantoum, and how to make the repeating lines of a villanelle do multiple tasks. I agree with the reviewer who said she'd want this book if stranded on a island. I can't read more than a page without stopping to write and I know that I've produced several publishable poems. I also know what I can do to revise poems that I knew didn't work, but wasn't sure how to fix them before reading this book. Excellent! I couldn't be more enthusiastic.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teach Yourself How to Write Poetry, November 10, 2003

By 

rizabiz "rizabiz" (Westhampton Beach, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art and Craft of Poetry (Paperback)

Sonnet, iambic pentameter, the villanelle. . . .and free form. How can a non-poet form reasonable and enjoyable poetry? This book is the answer especially if you appreciate poetry and want to learn some forms to test your ideas. This is the book. It's broken down into 3 sections. The first is a non-intimidating idea section which allows the reader to dip into his/her unconscious and come up with tons of ideas for poems and prose. You don't start off with a poem until the next two chapters where you take ideas from the idea file and utilize them. I mean, who knew how important a very effective title was to poetry, poets perhaps? The last chapter discusses the particular forms and how you can revise, yes you can revise, your poems to work into a form. This book's format was incredibly enjoyable. After reading it once, I had several poems that I was happy with. When I read it again, yes, this is definately a book to read more than once, I will get more ambitious and focus on forms. This first time I just had fun. I can see why it is recommended by teachers for students. Or, like me, you can teach yourself.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Teaching Tool, July 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Art and Craft of Poetry (Paperback)

Michael Bugeja's book is geared toward writers of any caliber, especially those who do not appreciate scholarly approaches to poetry composition. This text is hand's on and continues to be a best-seller after almost a decade because the instruction is based on effective teaching, rhymed and free verse approaches, and several levels of exercises at the end of each chapter. The work also comes with an extensive anthology exposing the reader to poetry from Shakespeare to the current era.