Users Product Reviews: |
Product Review Summary: Excellent Book! This book is excellent as a reference guide and text for both teachers and poets. This handbook defines the forms,summarizes their histories,and shows great examples. It is a bible for Formalist poets.
I have used the book for years while teaching my poetry classes. It is much less expensive and has more practical substance than many college texts I've used. The text formant is friendly to the eye and easy to follow. Ron did a great job editing this book.
I highly recommend it.
Product Review Summary: A good teacher/student guide I found that this is a good guide for teachers of poetry who desire to offer form poetry to students with little exposure to various forms. As one who has researched many forms, I was hoping to find unique forms within this book, which was not the case. It is a good foundational book for students and teachers, but for poets familiar with the more common forms and seeking to expand into new areas of poetic form, it is probably not the best of guides, which is why I have rated it a little lower.
Product Review Summary: Instructive and inspirational This is a very useful book for quickly looking up various forms of poetry. I teach English and often times it is very nice to have a simple reference book available that explains and shows the varieties of poetry.
Product Review Summary: Simply the Best Poetry Handbook No adequate superlative exists for this poetry handbook--simply the best on the market. Rarely does a writing handbook work for all age groups, but this solid one does. Even elementary teachers could use some of the poetic forms, such as couplets, haiku, and nonsense poems, for their classes, and, yet, professional writers can dip into this densely rich (yet compact) volume and pull out an appropriate form from the 75+ forms offered.
I have used this handbook for my college creative writing classes since 1998; as writing fads come and go, this poetry handbook endures because it offers a simple, yet interesting, approach to writing poetry: a short history of the form; a brief explanation on how the form works; when appropriate, a sample poem (or verses) showing the form in action; and, in some cases, a diagram for the more complicated forms, such as the sestina and pantoum.
Semester after semester, my students praise this book, and many decide to keep it for their libraries, instead of reselling it to the college bookstore. I keep searching, but I have not been able to find its fiction handbook counterpart. Ron Padgett has done a fine job of compiling the forms, researching their histories, and finding stellar sample poems to show how the forms work. I hope this handbook NEVER goes out of print!
Product Review Summary: a useful addition for the writer's toolbox This is a wonderful reference book for poets who want to expand their repertoire. Over seventy poetic forms are covered, and each section includes: an explanation of the form, discussion of any variations on the form, at least one literary example, and reference to other prominent examples and/or poets who use the form.
I've used this book for many years as a jumping-off point when in search of inspiration or when playing around with a different poetic form. It's easy to read and can be used by people with a variety of experience, from beginners to professionals, and from school-aged to the time-ripened crowd.
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