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A Poetry Handbook | 
 enlarge | Author: Mary Oliver
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $1.99
You Save: $12.01 (86%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 9567
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.4
ISBN: 0156724006
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.1
EAN: 9780156724005
ASIN: 0156724006
Publication Date: August 15, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
This slender guide by Mary Oliver deserves a place on the shelves of any budding poet. In clear, accessible prose, Oliver (winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for poetry) arms the reader with an understanding of the technical aspects of poetry writing. Her lessons on sound, line (length, meter, breaks), poetic forms (and lack thereof), tone, imagery, and revision are illustrated by a handful of wonderful poems (too bad Oliver was so modest as to not include her own). What could have been a dry account is infused throughout with Oliver's passion for her subject, which she describes as "a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart (that courageous but also shy factory of emotion) and the learned skills of the conscious mind." One comes away from this volume feeling both empowered and daunted. Writing poetry is good, hard work.
Product Description
With passion, wit, and good common sense, the celebrated poet Mary Oliver tells of the basic ways a poem is built-meter and rhyme, form and diction, sound and sense. Drawing on poems from Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others, Oliver imparts an extraordinary amount of information in a remarkably short space. “Stunning” (Los Angeles Times). Index.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 Simply wonderful! September 21, 2008
I have to say, I am VERY picky when it comes to books. Whatever the genre, be it non-fiction, fiction, or poetry, I demand much. I strongly feel that those who reach the top of the heap amidst all the would-be writers out there should be shining examples.
Having said that, this book certainly passes muster. It exposes one to a great variety of poetic styles and techniques, and was instrumental in opening my mind and heart to several poetic forms I would never have dreamed I would like.
Ms. Oliver's love of poetry and language, her own ability to weave words, her wide-eyed filter into a cross-section of different poetic forms and their underlying mechanisms, and the excellent examples used to amplify those observations, make this one book that should grace every poetry-lover's shelf.
Absolute Best Poetry Introduction August 27, 2008
I've been reading a lot of books on poetry, meter and writing and Mary Oliver is the best. She is Clear, Concise, and Accessible by all levels of readers.
Some books on writing or poetry need to be decoded or explained by a professor or expert. For example John Hollander wrote a wonderful book titled "Rhyme's Reason" but parts of it were way over my head. If it was the first poetry book I read I wouldn't have kept reading them. Not to discount JH,(Rhyme's Reason is a superb book.) but rather Mary Oliver's book is easy to digest.
I highly recommend this to not just poets but all writers. The information on meter and the use of language and phonics is enlightening.
 The joy of Poetry July 5, 2008
Mary Oliver makes variations of poetry styles clear and useful to a serious writer of poetry or one wanting to change from prose to poetry. Easy for a beginner, good reference for anyone.
Just what it says it is April 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mary Oliver's book about writing poetry is very like her poetry, unsurprisingly. It is brief, evocative, latent with implications and wit. It seemed to be addressed to people who attend poetry workshops and some points seemed to have derived from that type of experience, and the type of poem that: "it really doesn't matter whether you read it or not." She makes the point that good poetry requires solitude for its gestation, and I don't think it's too great besmirchment of educational ideals to say that great poets are born not made, after all people don't seem able to "learn" spiritual intuition. Some people do however begin to ring inside when the subject matter of spiritual intuition comes up, as in her poetry, and this book about technique manages to stir you within. It's also entertaining.
But I think if she hadn't been addressing poetry workshop attendees, she might have taken up the very dangerous topic of subject matter. She, like the great Haiku artists, always writes about aspects of the reality we can sense: see, hear, touch, remember seeing. etc. and these experiences lead to deeper reflections of the deeper Reality. Her poems take us to the place where the higher world and (our) lower world overlap, which, though it's everywhere, isn't that easy to find.
I think the real necessity in learning to be a poet or artist of any kind is in the learning to live, in becoming permeable to the great invisibility. This is much more difficult than is generally thought and, possibly, a subject of great interest, since it entails a study of everything you do and are. Anyway, she avoided this aspect of poetry for the moment and wrote this perfectly fine, insightful examination modern poetic virtues and sensibilities.
An Excellent Handbook June 24, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book by Mary Oliver is an excellent resource for any poet seeking to improve their understanding of the craft. She acknowledges the need for creativity and experimentalism, yet does so by confirming time-honored techniques and explanations of formal structures. I tend toward the free verse form of poetry, but do dabble in iambic rhyme. I have always felt that structure is the enemy of good poetry, but have also felt the inexplicable contradiction of appreciating Robert Frost and Shakespeare. This book explains what I could not put my finger one and has convinced me that structured poetry is just one of many forms and free verse, for all of its worth and value in the modern pool of poetry, is not the only valid form.
I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand poetry better, both the reading of it as well as the writing of it. Excellent job, Mary!
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