The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within [Hardcover]

Stephen Fry (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 17, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1592402488 | ISBN-13: 978-1592402489

I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry... I believe poetry is a primal impulse within all of us. I believe we are all capable of it and furthermore that a small, often ignored corner of us positively yearns to try it.
—Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled

Stephen Fry believes that if one can speak and read English, one can write poetry. Many of us have never been taught to read or write poetry and think of it as a mysterious and intimidating form. Or, if we have been taught, we remember uncomfortable silence when an English teacher invited the class to "respond" to a poem. In The Ode Less Travelled, Fry sets out to correct this problem by giving aspiring poets the tools and confidence they need to write poetry for pleasure.

Fry is a wonderfully engaging teacher and writer of poetry himself, and he explains the various elements of poetry in simple terms, without condescension. His enjoyable exercises and witty insights introduce the concepts of Metre, Rhyme, Form, Diction, and Poetics. Aspiring poets will learn to write a sonnet, on ode, a villanelle, a ballad, and a haiku, among others. Along the way, he introduces us to poets we've heard of, but never read. The Ode Less Travelled is a lively celebration of poetry that makes even the most reluctant reader want to pick up a pencil and give it a try.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this delightfully erudite, charming and soundly pedagogical guide to poetic form, British actor (narrator of the Harry Potter movies, among other roles), novelist and secret poet Fry leads the reader through a series of lessons on meter, rhythm, rhyme and stanza length and reveals the structural logic of every imaginable poetic form, including the haiku, the ballad, the ode and the sonnet. Writing poetry, like any hobby, should be fun, Fry claims, and while talent is inborn, technique can be learned. Inviting readers to study the wealth of choices of form available in the world's major poetic traditions, Fry himself pens intentionally vapid yet entertaining poems that demonstrate each form's rules and patterning, and ends each lesson with wittily devised exercises for readers. Fry rails against the dumbing down of verse in a section subtitled "Stephen gets all cross": "It is as if we have been encouraged to believe that form is a kind of fascism and that to acquire knowledge is to drive a jackboot into the face of those poor souls who are too incurious, dull-witted or idle to find out what poetry can be." Fry has created an invaluable and highly enjoyable reference book on poetic form, which deserves to achieve widespread academic adoption, despite or even because of its saucy and Anglocentric tone. (Aug. 17)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The author, a noted novelist, comedian, and actor, doubts his new book will make it onto school curricula, and that's a shame. Of all the poetry guides you're likely to read (and there are a ton of them out there), this one's probably the most entertainingly written and downright useful. The book is full of technical terms--spondee, enjambment, trochee--but these are explained so cleverly and so clearly that we very quickly can use them as though we've been doing so all our lives. The book is an education not only in the mechanics of poetry but also in its history. And, naturally, it's full to bursting with the author's delightfully impish wit: "The above," he writes at one point, "is precisely the kind of worthless arse-dribble I am forced to read whenever I agree to judge a poetry competition." Fry's legion of fans will get an enormous kick out of it, and English-lit students will learn more from this one book than they will from a stack of more traditional textbooks. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (August 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592402488
• ISBN-13: 978-1592402489
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #111,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Education & Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Poetry

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 64 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars poetic justice November 8, 2005

By lowell duluth

Format:Hardcover

There was a fine fellow named Fry...who has here given the world a very funny (at times downright filthy), knowledgeable, reliable and, I would say, unique volume about the art & craft of writing poetry. I know Fry`s erudition & relentless wit can put off some people (mostly English ones - how we suspect success and excellence in this fearful country!) but I forgive the man his exuberant excesses and prefer to celebrate him as a generous-spirited Good Thing.
If you have never written a poem in your life, or you are a little afraid to, or want some encouragement, or wish to find out more about the mechanics of `prosody`, or are, indeed, already happily writing poems galore - this book is for you. Find out what a `foot` is; the difference between a Shakespearean & Petrarchan sonnet; and what in Heaven`s name is a spondee? Fry gives (often hilarious) examples of his own, and sets `exercises` at the end of each chapter. Mildly avuncular & user-friendly, without dumbing down.
My only quibble is his misunderstanding of what a haiku really is. He admits his ignorance of the intricacies of the more `exotic` verse forms, but it`s a shame he has given such poor, not to say inaccurate, examples of haiku - especially since the Guardian`s onetime haiku competition daily printed efforts by readers which utterly ignored the `break` necessary between the second & third lines. If you`re going to call something a haiku, at least have the politeness to find out what it is - and isn`t - to begin with! (Bete noir got off chest.)
This is Fry at his best. Long may he prosper until the sad but inevitable day when flights of chubby, pink-bottomed angels sing him to his well-earned rest.
Hey, that last paragraph rhymed - even if it didn`t scan.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A volume wise and wry, from Mr. Stephen Fry. September 30, 2006

By Miles D. Moore TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

One of my favorite quotes about poetry is from Dame Edith Sitwell. "Poetry is like horticulture," she said. "Each poem should be allowed to grow according to its natural form." In his new book, "The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within," Stephen Fry creates a veritable topiary garden of poetry, providing not only an encyclopedic overview of poetic meters and forms in English but a cogent, bracing and witty demonstration of their value. As its subtitle suggests, "The Ode Less Travelled" is written as a primer to both beginning and experienced poets who need, shall we say, a jump start to their creativity. Each chapter offers a discussion, with examples, of a particular meter, rhyme scheme or form, and suggests exercises at the end for readers to create their own examples. Fry quotes English poets from William Shakespeare to William McGonagall to illustrate his points, as well as a gratifyingly large array of American poets. Sometimes, when an example from the canon is not readily available, Fry will write his own, such as when he illustrates a dactyl (one stressed syllable, two non-stressed) followed by a molossus (three sharply stressed syllables in a row) in an imagined argument between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader:

Why do you bother me? Go to Hell!

I am your destiny. Can't you tell?

You're not my father. Eat my shorts!

Come to the dark side. Feel the force!

Fry--a renowned writer, actor, director, wit and polymath--brings all his Cambridge erudition to "The Ode Less Travelled," combined with the passion of a man who cares to the depth of his soul about language and his possibilities. By learning as much as possible about the meters and forms available to us as poets in English, he argues, we gain insight into the sheer potential of the English language. That is a lesson that has importance far beyond the realm of poetry. In one of the book's closing chapters, he expounds on what he calls the flexibility of English, compared with other languages: "(I)t is more than a question of the thousands more words available to us, it is also a question of the numberless styles, modes, jargons and slangs we have recourse to. If by poetry we mean something more than the decorative, noble and refined, then English is a perfect language for poetry. So be alert to it at all times." Hear, hear!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Pleased October 16, 2006

By Linda Rice Carlton Abraham

Format:Hardcover

Having just enjoyed listening to Mr. Fry read his novel "The Hippopotamus" on my long commutes, I was immediately attracted when I heard of "The Ode Less Traveled." I have often wondered why I don't understand many poems, (and not just modern ones), and can't tell good from bad. I have tried a number of other books on poetry with no success. Beginning "The Ode..." however, I immediately recognized Mr. Fry's cadence of speech and humour and the first twenty pages have been very easy to follow. Now I am doing his suggested exercises with iambic pentameter, and I am looking forward to the rest and finally knowing something about poetry. In my opinion, Stephen Fry is one of a kind, and what fun it would have been if he had been my high school English teacher!