Primer for Poets

by Gregory Orr

Overview

An innovative and accessible guide to poetry-writing by an award-winning poet and beloved professor of poetry.

A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry guides the young poet toward a deeper understanding of how poetry can function in his or her life, while also introducing the art in an exciting new way. Using such poems as Theodore Roethke’s "My Papa’s Waltz" and Robert Hayden’s "Those Winter Sundays," the Primer encourages young writers to approach their "thresholds"—those places where disorder meets order, where shaping imagination can turn language into urgent and persuasive poems. It provides the poet with more than a dozen focused writing exercises and explains essential topics such as the personal and cultural threshold; the four forces that animate poetic language (naming, singing, saying, imagining); tactics of revision; ecstasy and engagement as motives for poetry; and how to locate and learn from our personal poetic forebears.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393253931
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/13/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	279,275
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Gregory Orr has written twelve poetry collections, a memoir, and several books of criticism, most recently A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry. The recipient of Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Preface 9

Part 1 Disorder and Order

Chapter 1 Poetry Is Both Simple and Complex 15

Chapter 2 Letting In the Disorder 41

Chapter 3 The Lyric Invitation 59

Part 2 Powers of Ordering

Chapter 4 Imagination at the Threshold 71

Chapter 5 Lyric and Narrative: Two Fundamental Ordering Impulses 82

Chapter 6 Some Basic Issues 118

Part 3 Words Coming Alive in Poems

Chapter 7 Words Coming Alive in Poems 153

Chapter 8 Naming 160

Chapter 9 Singing 183

Chapter 10 Saying 224

Chapter 11 Imagining 240

Part 4 Why Poems? Why Poets?

Chapter 12 Ecstasy and Engagement 267

Chapter 13 A Second Self in a Second World 278

Chapter 14 Craft and Quest 296

Acknowledgments 307

Glossary 309

Credits 321

Editorial Reviews

"[Orr] present[s] luminous ideas that may help novices and teachers alike. . . . [He] serves as a sage and gentle guide, sharing wisdom about the creative process and how poetry can enrich those who embrace it. . . . [A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry] is revolutionary . . . because it shows readers how to turn an occasional, burning impulse into a lifelong pleasure."

Elizabeth Lund