Drawing on his extensive experience of poetry workshops and courses, Peter Sansom shows would-be poets how to write better, how to write authentically, and how to say genuinely what is to be said. He illustrates his book with many useful examples, covering the areas of writing techniques and procedures and drafting. Writing Poems includes sections on meter, rhyme, half-rhyme, and free verse, fixed forms and how to use them, workshops and writing groups, writing games and exercises, a detailed and annotated reading list, and a glossary of technical terms.
Writing Poems: 2 (Bloodaxe Poetry Handbooks)
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'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
'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
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247 of 248 people found the following review helpful
By Hilary Jane
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.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By DaveChang
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By J. Scott
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Just taken to poetry and found this book from Bloodaxe ideal. Author is talking to readers as well as writers and poetry at school was pretty bad when I did it but the fact it should be spoken out loud rather than just read on the page is one of the main points covered.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Writing Poems by Peter Sansom intermediate poetry studies
The book covers the technicalities of poetry writing well with passages on rhythm, meter, rhyme and stanza types. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Sue Spiers
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good guide
By the time you have followed Sansom's advice, you will have deleted everything you have ever written, but will probably have written at least one decent poem ( which he recommends... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Yvonne Moore
4.0 out of 5 stars
another muse?
I bought this before attacking a project on poetry forms. Well written and tells me lots I need to know. Read more
Published 5 months ago by lazygardener
5.0 out of 5 stars
Practical handbook
Clearly written with sections on metre, rhyme, various poetic forms, writing exercises, suggestions for further reading and a useful glossary.
Published on 14 Jan 2011 by karen59
4.0 out of 5 stars
writing poems
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.
Published on 29 Jun 2010 by W. S. Trotter
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