Tried and True

By Lisa Houlihan Stice

With so many so many books on craft, it is difficult to know which ones are worth your time and money. Well, here are some books recommended by the awesome MFA poetry professors and students, so you can stock your shelves in confidence:

How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch (2 recommendations)
"This is a wonderful book, suitable for both beginnings and more advanced poet, that demonstrates how to read poetry as a poet should read, and has tons of resources and wonderful examples on where to find much more poetry to read." -- Derick Burleson

Rules for the Dance and A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver (2 recommendations)

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry (1 recommendation)
"terrific [resource] for both readers and writers of poetry" -- Wendy Scher

Writing Poems, Fifth Edition by Robert Wallace and Michelle Boisseau (3 recommendations)
"[It] s the book I use for craft because it makes clear contact with 'the ground' of verse: the line. Craft books that don't do that, but that focus on all sorts of other elements of language, are about prose as much as verse. I use an older edition, the fifth, because there are still plenty of them out there and the basic information doesn't change -- hasn't changed -- and this edition spares students the cost of a new text." -- Linda McCarriston

The Poetry Dictionary by John Drury (1 recommendation)
"This is great as a quick reference because all the terms are in alphabetical order, just like a regular dictionary, and poems are provided as examples." -- Lisa Houlihan Stice

A Poet's Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie (1 recommendation)
"[It] is specifically geared towards poets.  Kinzie not only knows the technical aspects of poems but she can thoroughly explain them PLUS she gives numerous examples throughout of what is being discussed chapter by chapter.  Grad poets should find the scansion of poems helpful too. At the end of the book is a glossary, one of the most comprehensive I've ever discovered, including terms such as isocron, zeugma, and meiosis, among others."  -- Anne Caston

Eats Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss (1 recommendation)
"a humorous (yet deadly-serious) look at what grammar mistakes can cost a writer, in terms of how the reader comprehends the sentence - a focus on punctuation" -- Anne Caston

The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick (1 recommendation)
"[It] has been immensely helpful to me as a poet because of Gornick's clarity about what separates the situation from the story in a piece.  Beautifully written, aimed at nonfiction and fiction writers but, as I said earlier, immensely helpful to poets also." -- Anne Caston

Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag (1 recommendation)
"[It] is a close and provocative examination of the spectator's position - the writer's and photographer's as well - and responses when viewing images of the pain and suffering of others.  Among her premises is that sympathy is often 'too simple' a response and that we might set aside sympathy for those 'beset by war and murderous politics' and to consider, instead, how our privileges are 'located on the same map as their suffering and may - in ways we may prefer not to imagine - be linked to their suffering.'" -- Anne Caston

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