The practice of poetry. Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach

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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PART 1. LADDERS TO THE DARK: THE UNCONSCIOUS AS GOLD MINE First Words Ann Lauterbach Not-So-Automatic Automatic-Writing Exercise Thomas Lux Translations: Idea to Image (for a group) Carol Muske Dream Notebook Maxine Kumin Ten-Minute Spill Rita Dove Auction: First Lines (for a group) Michael Waters “Only Connect” Sydney Lea Chanting the Flowers Off the Wall (for a group) Christopher Davis An Emotional Landscape (for a group) Cleopatra Mathis A Journey to Nowhere Susan Snively The Free-Lance Muse Ann Lauterbach PART 2. THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD: IMAGE AND METAPHOR One’s-Self, En-Masse Michael Pettit Intriguing Objects Exercise/ “Show and Tell” (for a group) Anne Waldman Breaking the Sentence; or, No Sentences but in Things Roger Mitchell Five Easy Pieces Richard Jackson As/Like/Finish the Sentence Linnea Johnson Quilting in the Ditch James McKean Getting at Metaphor Roger Mitchell A Little Nightmusic: The Narrative Metaphor T. Alan Broughton Experience Falls Through Language like Water Through a Sieve Susan Mitchell Writing the Spectrum Elizabeth Spires “Tell by Showing”: An Exercise Against Technique Roger Mitchell PART 3. WHO’S TALKING AND WHY?: THE SELF AND ITS SUBJECTS A. ASPECTS OF VOICE Dramatic Monologue: Carving the Voice, Carving the Mask David St. John The Widow Maura Stanton Our Suits, Our Selves Christopher Gilbert Letter Poems Robin Behn Tabloid Tone Exercise Lee Upton The Peasant Wedding (for a group) Mary Swander Estrangement and Reconciliation: The Self Has It Out with the Self Leslie Ullman “In the Waiting Room” Carol Muske B. WHAT’S IT ABOUT? Who We Were Edward Hirsch Your Mother’s Kitchen Rita Dove The Night Aunt Dottie Caught Elvis’s Handkerchief When He Tossed It from the Stage of The Sands in Vegas David Wojahn Not “The Oprah Winfrey Show” (for a group) Garrett Hongo Extrapolation Pamela Alexander Evolutions Deborah Digges Afterimages: The History of a Reflection Jay Klokker Subject and Sound: The Black Sheep Kenneth Rosen A Poem That Scares You Sandra McPherson PART 4. TRUTH IN STRANGENESS: ACCIDENTS, NONRATIONAL CHANCE, AND THE Intelligence Test Alberta Turner Personal Universe Deck Linnea Johnson The Cut-and-Shuffle Poem Jack Myers Finish This! Stuart Friebert Twenty Little Poetry Projects Jim Simmerman Collaborative “Cut-Up” Anne Waldman Found in Translation Theodore Weiss Homophonic Translation Charles Bernstein Commentary on Charles Bernstein’s Homophonic Translation Pamela Alexander Index/Table of Contents Exercise Lee Upton Make Your Own System! Jackson Mac Low PART 5. LAWS OF THE WILD: STRUCTURE, SHAPELINESS, AND ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES Block, Pillar, Slab, and Beam Deborah Digges The Fill-in-the-Blanks or Definition Poem Jack Myers Opposites: The Attraction of Titles Stuart Dischell Cleave and Cleave Carol Muske Matthewsian Invisible Hinge Pamela Alexander “Que Sera, Sera” and Other False Premises Christopher Gilbert “The Props Assist the House” James McKean The Familiar Alicia Ostriker Writing Between the Lines J. D. McClatchy The Poetry Obstacle Course Marcia Southwick Important Excitements: Writing Groups of Related Poems Maggie Anderson The Short Narrative Poem Roland Flint The Cat Poem Alicia Ostriker The Seduction Poem Alicia Ostriker PART 6. MUSICAL MATTERS: SOUND, RHYTHM, AND THE LINE A Lewis Carroll Carol Karen Swenson Emotion/Motion/Ocean/Shun Susan Mitchell Patterning Stephen Dunn Breathless, Out of Breath Richard Jackson Free-Verse Lineation Sharon Bryan A Variation on Sharon Bryan’s Free-Verse Lineation Jack Myers “Lyric” Poetry Dana Gioia Shall We Dance? Richard Jackson Short Lines and Long Lines Andrew Hudgins Word Problems and Science Tests Robin Becker Anglo-Saxon Lines Judith Baumel Sapphic Stanzas Judith Baumel Pantoum Judith Baumel Attempting a Villanelle Molly Peacock Ghazal: The Charms of a Considered Disunity Agha Shahid Ali The Meter Reader Thomas Rabbitt PART 7. MAJOR AND MINOR SURGERY: ON REVISION AND WRITER’S BLOCK A. EXERCISES Writer’s Block: An Antidote Daniel Halpern Smash Palace William Matthews Rhapsodizing Repetitions Lee Upton Stealing the Goods Stephen Dunn Jump-Starting the Dead Poem Lynne McMahon Scissors & Scotch Tape Chase Twichell In a Dark Room: Photography and Revision Maggie Anderson The Party of the Century (for a group) Roger Weingarten The Shell Game Thomas Rabbitt B. REFLECTIONS The Rewrite as Assignment Stanley Plumly Household Economy, Ruthlessness, Romance, and the Art of Hospitality Richard Tillinghast Of Revision Donald Justice In Praise of Malice: Thoughts on Revision Lynn Emanuel Waiting and Silence Susan Snively SEARCHABLE TERMS APPENDIX A: Mail-Order Sources of Poetry Books APPENDIX B: Published Works Referred to in the Text COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHORS CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES OTHER BOOKS BY ROBIN BEHN OTHER BOOKS BY CHASE TWICHELL CREDITS COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER