Start reading Writing Poems: 2 (Bloodaxe Poetry Handbooks) on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

 
 
 

Try it free

Sample the beginning of this book for free

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

Read books on your computer or other mobile devices with our FREE Kindle Reading Apps.
Writing Poems: 2 (Bloodaxe Poetry Handbooks)
 
 

Writing Poems: 2 (Bloodaxe Poetry Handbooks) [Kindle Edition]

Peter Sansom
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Digital List Price: £6.83 What's this?
Print List Price: £7.95
Kindle Price: £5.46 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: £2.49 (31%)
Unlike print books, digital books are subject to VAT.

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition £5.46  
Paperback £5.96  


Product Description

Review

'I would recommend this book to any student - It's funny, honest, thoughtful, realistic.' --- Gillian Allnutt, Northern Echo.

'Peter Sansom's handbook is The Haynes Manual for Poetry.' --- Cliff Yates

'Peter Sansom is the best poetry teacher in the world.' --- Sian Hughes, Guardian

Product Description

Drawing on his extensive experience of poetry workshops and courses, Peter Sansom shows you not how to write but how to write better, how to write authentically, how to say genuinely what you genuinely mean to say. This practical guide is illustrated with many examples. Peter Sansom covers such areas as submitting to magazines; the small presses; analysing poems; writing techniques and procedures;
and drafting. He includes brief resumes and discussions of literary history and literary fashions, the spirit of the age, and the creative process itself. Above all, his book helps you learn discrimination in your reading and writing -- so that you can decide for yourself how you want your work to develop, whether that magazine was right in returning it or if they simply don't know their poetic arse from their elbow.
 
"Writing Poems" includes sections on:
• Metre, rhyme, half-rhyme and free verse.
• Fixed forms and how to use them.
• Workshops and writing groups.
• Writing games and exercises.
• A detailed, annotated reading list.
• Where to go from here.
• Glossary of technical terms.
"Writing Poems" has become an essential handbook for many poets and teachers: invaluable to writers just starting out, helpful to poets who need a nuts-and-bolts handbook, a godsend to anyone running poetry courses and workshops, and an inspiration to all readers and writers who want a book which re-examines the writing of poems.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 737 KB
  • Print Length: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Bloodaxe Books (21 July 2011)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B0077BOOHK
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #76,612 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  •  Would you like to give feedback on images?


More About the Author

Peter Sansom
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Visit Amazon's Peter Sansom Page

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Customer Reviews

3 star
0
2 star
0
1 star
0
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
232 of 233 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Writing poems - it's a great title. Deceptively plain, it carries many possible meanings, most of which Sansom slings out before he starts.

From the back cover on, he makes it clear that he won't be telling us what kind of poems to write or how to write them. Instead he's offering something much more valuable - why to write poems and how to write them better.

Quite a chunk of the book examines the techniques of some well-chosen poets, making it almost as much about reading poems as writing them. This makes a lot of sense, given Sansom's strong belief that close reading must come before writing. Using the work of poets from John Keats to Carol Ann Duffy, he shows us in detail why they write poems so well.

He then takes us very readably through the formal forms, with endearingly opinionated opinions on them all, along with some good solid definitions of the spondees, dactyls and pentameters that can be so unnerving. He offers sound advice on choosing titles and explains just why we need to be careful of dangerous poetry words like shard.

There's a few writing exercises and games as well, though Sansom disconcertingly seems to think that we're going to be leading students through these, rather than using them ourselves. Evidently this is a book about teaching other people to write poems too.

Sansom repeats more than once that the poet should show rather than tell, persuade rather than insist. But since he's writing prose here, I guess it's okay that he playfully goes on to do quite a bit of insisting anyway.

For a start, he's pretty insistent on the value of the small magazines and marginal publishing that have done so much for today's poets, poetry and poetry readers. Well, true enough, and the question of where your poems might go once you've written them is certainly treated here in a more thought-provoking way than in the usual tedious cut and paste jobs straight from last year's Writers and Artists Yearbook.

Sansom is just as insistent on the importance of writing authentically - surely the most basic requirement for a poet and yet often so elusive. I found him particularly helpful on this point, though a bit surprised by his choice of poem to illustrate it.

The tone of Sansom's list of whose poems to read, and why, goes a little beyond the persuasive too. Fine by me - it's a very personal list and that makes it all the easier to trust.

There's no real shortage of people writing about writing. Unlike a lot of them, Peter Sansom is an accomplished poet with a track record of helping many others get there too. Hardly surprising then that his contribution is so practical and inspiring.

Was this review helpful to you?
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book after struggling with the poetry module on a Creative writing course. It manages to keep balanced on that fine line between the mechanics of writing poetry and the "touchy-feely" aspects of it.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
writing poems 29 Jun 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
this is a good text book to have at hand when working, a bit of a hard read rather like the old style text book, but worth it once you know where the info is.
Was this review helpful to you?
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


Look for similar items by category


Look for similar items by subject


Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Privacy Statement Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Delivery Information Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Returns & Exchanges