Next Word, Better Word: The Craft of Writing PoetryThis accessible writer's guide provides a helpful framework for creating poetry and navigates contemporary concerns and practices. Stephen Dobyns, author of the classic book on the beauty of poetry, Best Words, Best Order, moves into new terrain in this remarkable book. Bringing years of experience to bear on issues such as subject matter, the mechanics of poetry, and the revision process, Dobyns explores the complex relationship between writers and their work. From Philip Larkin to Pablo Neruda to William Butler Yeats, every chapter reveals useful lessons in these renowned poets' work. Both enlightening and encouraging, Next Word, Better Word demystifies a subtle art form and shows writers how to overcome obstacles in the creative process. |
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Contents
1 | |
9 | |
two joining form and content | 25 |
three reconciling paradox | 47 |
four aspects of the syllable | 69 |
five line breaks | 89 |
six context and causality | 111 |
seven a sense of space | 127 |
ten moral inquiry | 187 |
eleven bearing witness | 205 |
twelve counterpoint | 219 |
thirteen the nature of metaphor | 235 |
glossary | 263 |
permissions | 265 |
notes | 267 |
275 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Baudelaire Baudelaire’s become beginning Berryman’s Cassirer comic context contextual closure create death Dencombe describe discuss Dream Song effect elements emotion emphasis English enjambment essay event exist experience feel fiction free verse give human iambic iambic pentameter iambs Ibid idea illusion imagine instance James’s language last line Leda line breaks lives look Louise Glück man’s Maud Gonne meaning metaphor meter metered poetry metrical moral Nadezhda Mandelstam narrative nature nondiscursive nonmetered nuance O’Connor Odysseus one’s perhaps person Phemius phrase poem poem’s poet poet’s Proto-Indo-European quatrain reader Reprinted by permission rhyme rhythm right brain Rilke Ritsos sense sentence Shakespeare simply sonnet sound speaker spondee stanza Stephen Dobyns story stressed and unstressed subject matter surprise swan symbol syntax taboo things thought tone trochee understand unstressed syllables verb vowel W. S. Merwin wants Whitman word Wright’s writing written wrote Yeats Yeats’s