Customer Reviews

Poem-Making: Ways to Begin Writing Poetry

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When I purchased "Poem-Making", about four years ago, I had never written a poem and detested the idea of actually reading the stuff. The reason I bought the book was because I'm a composer of music and I wanted to beging writing lyrics to my own songs. I thought writing poetry and writing lyrics was the same thing.

I was wrong!!!

But before I figured it out, I was hooked. By the time I realized writing lyrics and writing poetry were two seperate skills, I had learned to appreciate poetry in ways that I had never expected.

Livingston's book played a functioning role in this process. I don't much care for concrete poetry, but all of the other topics covered were just what I needed at that time in my development. I've written about 200 poems since I read her book and actually read poetry daily. Coming from a guy who always considered poetry to be "sissy stuff", I think that says a lot.

"Forms what affirms" according to the slyly alliterative phrase of my favorite poet, James Merrill; he was a master of allowing the formal anchor to support powerful and multi-layered lyricism. In the hands of a superb craftsman such as Merrill, one sees new dynamism in poetic forms.

But, I've always wondered at the role of form in teaching poetry. This year I had the unusual opportunity to teach writing to 6th graders. I purchased Myra Cohn Livingston's book as an assist to my planning for an extensive poetry unit. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it.

I have often worried that an emphasis on 'clever' forms such as "name" or "shape" poems distorts younger students' sense of what poetry is or can be. I feel that I spent quite a bit of this past year nudging this or that young poet to move beyond the poem shaped like a football to the one which captured, in its words, their delight with the game. Form became a wall blocking the view of things more important. But I must say that I wouldn't join those who would abandon form. And my students often took such delight in these previously-learned approaches that I could hardly wish to diminish their enthusiasm.

Subtitled "Ways to begin writing poetry", I expected this book would provide exercises and the like which ignite or launch a writing process. In a sense it does this. But the ignition is apparently intended to be that of a given form. Having looked at, e.g., elements of "sound" in poetry, a student might launch by trying to create a poem emphasizing alliteration. Limericks, haiku, cinquains and the other specific forms receive similar treatment.

In another way I was somewhat confused about the book's stance - in this case regarding its own audience. If it wasn't to be a collection of entry points for teachers, I thought that it would be a book written for my students to read or browse. Instead, it is a collection of essays about voice and form which a teacher or an older student poet will benefit from reading. Its certainly not aimed at the reading level of my younger poets and poetesses.

Livingston's writing is crisp and engaging and the book is a pleasure to read. I would be comfortable handing it to a 14-year-old poet as a self-teaching tool but ended up satisfied with its role in my teaching and thinking about poetry. As one who does not take too fondly to taxonomies of poetic form, technical treatises and the like, I found it to be exactly at my level in many ways.... just not what I expected.

This book is an OK book to start learning poetry.

I liked how Myra Cohn Livingston sketched a cypress tree by the way she placed the lines of the poem. That is very artistic indeed, now I have to figure out how to draw a cat!

There must be hundreds of books addressed to children and teens on the subject of how to write poetry. I've read at least twenty or more such books. This is one of the better ones, and it can easily be used by beginning adult poets as well as by teens. The book is short, as are the chapters. The instructions and suggestions are clear and encouraging. The main topics covered are:

The Voices of Poetry (Lyrical, Narrative, Dramatic)
Sound and Rhyme (Couplets, Tercets, Quatrains)
Other Elements of Sound
Rhythm and Metrics
Figures of Speech
Other Forms (Haiku, Cinquain, Limerick, and more)

Throughout the book Livingston gives examples of the type of poetry, stanza, meter, rhyme, or figure of speech that she's talking about. A well-done book.

I love the simple, clear explanations of poetry basics given in this book. I own and have read other books on poetry, but the simplicity of this one always makes me go back to it when I'm in the mood to rekindle the poetic sparks inside of me.

This book is a must if you are learning or teaching poetry. It shows how you can make fabulous poems that are not the least bit boring! It explains everything well and gives lots of examples. after reading this book, you could probably become a proffesional poet. And it is great for teachers to use in teaching!