To Make a Poem

A poem comes from the same human need as a prayer, a curse, a lullaby, and a keen. How can emotion use language to satisfy its most urgent need, and how can it share and prolong that satisfaction by putting it into poems that will satisfy the same need in others? The answer can be learned and the skill taught. Unlike many other textbooks, this one has no teaching manual and Alberta Turner does not expect those who use it to agree with her interpretations. Each principled is illustrated with detailed analysis of several poems, but it is up to the teachers and students to decide whether it has succeeded or failed. Poetic tastes can't be legislated; they have to creep by underground runners. Although a poem never illustrates only one poetic principle at a time, this book has focused on each separately. Since the book is intended to used by beginning poets, the principles are sequenced from simpler to more complex. As courses in writing poetry range from two-week enrichment programs to full-semester college workshops, the book is arranged so that the course can be shortened or lengthened. This book will work best for flexible, imaginative teachers of flexible imaginative students.A Collegiate Press book

Alberta Turner is a winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize, is an editor atField Magazine, and is the author of 50 Contemporary Poets: The Creative Process. She is a professor of English at Cleveland State University.