Customer Reviews

An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art

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Finch and Varnes have compiled and edited a groundbreaking and important book on poetry and its forms. Most outstanding is how the book is true to its title; it IS an exaltation of forms. Eclipsing Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms, this volume celebrates poetic expression in its polyvalent forms. The editors gathered short, pithy introductions to poetic forms (from dactyl metrics to the ghazal) used by practicing poets from the well-known (Billy Colins, Maxine Kumin) to the emerging (Vince Gotera, Tracie Morris). Accompanying the introductions are poetic examples of the forms. Most impressive is the range and eclecticism of topics: LANGUAGE poetry lies next to new formalist poetry lies next to slam poetry lies next to shaped poetry. In short, this book deftly and enthusiastically answers the question of where poetry stands at the beginning of the 21st century. Highest recommendation.

Wow, this book has made quite an impression. There is nothing I can say to top what has been said already, but what I can do is add my two cents of approval. I actually prefer this book over Turco's Book of Forms. It reads better and explains the forms better. This books covers a wide variety of traditional and experimental forms of poetry. And Finch and Varnes pulled together a diverse group of poets, from R.S. Gwynn and Dana Gioia to Maxine Chernoff and DJ Renegade. From Anthony Hecht to Paul Hoover. There's Tim Steele, Jan Hodge, X.J. Kennedy, Agha Shahid Ali, Maxine Kumin, Charles Bernstein, adn Billy COllins. You get all styles of poets and poetry within. For any serious poet, this is a must have book. And it is loaded with great examples of each type it discusses.

I LOVE this book and urge you to read it. In fact, I found it important enough to reference in my MFA poetry thesis:

"My attitude towards formal poetics echoes that of friends and colleagues Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes, as detailed in their recent anthology An Exaltation of Forms: 'by including both exploratory and traditional forms. . . . [we] hope to open a discussion about form that cuts across poetic movements, which have for too long either ignored or distorted each others' insights and expertise' (2). In the spirit of Smith, both Finch and Varnes embrace this multiplicity of being, but they apply the concept to poetic form itself. I too find their willingness to consider organic form seriously a sturdy bridge between New Formalism and the more experimental and 'non-academic' schools of poetry. Such willingness to hear, to learn, and to understand can make poetry (and other cloven territory) stronger at its broken places."

Whether you are a hardcore formalist or convinced that "form equals fascism" (a position that I would gently urge you to reconsider), you will find many tools for the poetic toolbox in this book.

Keep an open mind, and a both-and rather than either-or mentality, and try the experiments that you find the most suspect. For me, it was Jena Osman's procedural poetry (pp. 366-78), which involved the seemingly inane exercise of circling words in a printed article, then using those words to build a draft of a poem. A strong and very different kind of poem resulted from my willingness to try procedural form exercises.

For a book to cover a range of expertise and poetics including (but not limited to!) Dana Gioia, Shahid Ali, Marilyn Hacker, Allison Jospeh, Hilda Morley, Alice Fulton, Tim Steele, Tracie Morris, Bob Holman, Amiri Baraka, DJ Renegade, Sam Gwynn, and Charles Bernstein is nothing short of amazing. That Finch and Varnes came out with a book useful for creative writing workshops, individual writers, literary theorists, and general readers is a great gift to all of us who care about the art and craft of poetry.

I LOVE this book and urge you to read it. In fact, I found it important enough to reference in my MFA poetry thesis:

"My attitude towards formal poetics echoes that of friends and colleagues Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes, as detailed in their recent anthology An Exaltation of Forms: 'by including both exploratory and traditional forms. . . . [we] hope to open a discussion about form that cuts across poetic movements, which have for too long either ignored or distorted each others' insights and expertise' (2). In the spirit of Smith, both Finch and Varnes embrace this multiplicity of being, but they apply the concept to poetic form itself. I too find their willingness to consider organic form seriously a sturdy bridge between New Formalism and the more experimental and 'non-academic' schools of poetry. Such willingness to hear, to learn, and to understand can make poetry (and other cloven territory) stronger at its broken places."

Whether you are a hardcore formalist or convinced that "form equals fascism" (a position that I would gently urge you to reconsider), you will find many tools for the poetic toolbox in this book.

Keep an open mind, and a both-and rather than either-or mentality, and try the experiments that you find the most suspect. For me, it was Jena Osman's procedural poetry (pp. 366-78), which involved the seemingly inane exercise of circling words in a printed article, then using those words to build a draft of a poem. What I got was one of my strongest free-verse pieces!

For a book to cover a range of expertise and poetics including (but not limited to!) Dana Gioia, Shahid Ali, Marilyn Hacker, Allison Jospeh, Hilda Morley, Alice Fulton, Tim Steele, Tracie Morris, Bob Holman, Amiri Baraka, DJ Renegade, Sam Gwynn, and Charles Bernstein is nothing short of amazing. That Finch and Varnes came out with a book useful for creative writing workshops, individual writers, literary theorists, and general readers is a great gift to all of us who care about the art and craft of poetry.

An Exaltation of Forms is a revolutionary book! -Elizabeth Alexander

My new peer writing group is using An Exaltation of Forms to try out new forms. Everyone loves the book and says that it's far better than other books about forms they've seen. -Judith Barrington

An Exaltation of Forms offers a range of poetic styles, philosophies and approaches-an abundance of models. For example, it includes discussions of avant garde forms and even spoken word forms-- two forms/genres often under-represented.-Terrance Hayes

An Exaltation of Forms is wonderful! A confluence of so many streams could make an ocean. - Joan Retallack

Some good essays, but most were undergraduate pieces from the 1950s,except the ideas were less compelling than they would have been in that era. Disappointing, but also revealing, because as always it would be better if poets just wrote poetry (unless your John Keats: see his letters) and stopped cluttering up the world with their prose.