The Crafty Poet
The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop is an excellent and practical guide for practicing poets. This is a beyond-the-beginners book that skips fluff and cheering for hands-on writing prompts that get the mind working and the pen rolling.
It's a keeper! Buy it now!
Poet and author Diane Lockward has assembled a valuable resource. Featuring work from more than 100 poets, the book is packed with insider tips, techniques, interviews, and model poems from highly regarded poets, including more than a dozen poet laureates. Each model poem is followed by a prompt and two sample poems written to the prompt.
I'm delighted to have one of my poems included in the book:
And this is my loneliness:
coming home to cold rooms,
our unmade bed, piles of dirty clothes,
unopened bills, casseroles rotting with grief.
Nothing tastes. I eat crackers for dinner, and worry
about our girls who will stumble and grow old without
your patience, who will turn bitter with loss, and the baby
who will know only photos I show, each time saying
this is the man who tried to live longer just for you.
It’s still raining. We’re cold. The grass, even in winter,
is long and green, mocking our want. Every gray day,
every clear sky, every turn, everything
is reminder and wound.
There’s no room in this emptiness.
Our bed is vacant. I sleep on the floor, dreamless
with the memory of late nights cocooned in you.
- Drew Myron
Drew
