The Poetry Home Repair Manual
The Poetry Home Repair Manual:
Practical Advice for Beginning Poets
©2005 by Ted Kooser, United States Poet Laureate 2004-2006
Writing poetry is serious work. And the best thing you can do to learn to write poetry, is to write poetry. Other things that you can do to learn include reading poetry, as well as reading about writing poetry. And this book about writing poetry, gave me many insights.
Dispelling Myths
If it doesn’t come out whole, it can’t be any good. For a long time I thought that a poem had to come out whole or it was just wrong. It was many years before I could accept that it was alright for them to come out needing work. Since that realization, I’ve read countless views on writing poems, including one or two from writers who held that only good poems came out whole. Still, many more have not only extolled the virtues of reworking their poetry, but they also advocate revising for other writers as well.
That’s one of the myths dispelled in The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets, ©2005. It’s written by Ted Kooser, United States Poet Laureate 2004-2006.
One thing I work at is picking the words that will transmit my experience, my reason for writing the words. To translate events felt into words that convey my response to them is my mission when I’m working up a poem. According to Kooser,
Though it can be a lovely experience to write a poem that pleases and delights its author, to write something that touches a reader is just about as good as it gets.
(Bold added for emphasis by me.)
You don’t have to be a genius to write poetry. Another myth is that all poets are Mensa scholars. I thought for a while that if I didn’t know enough stuff, I would never be able to write poetry that people would be able to relate to or understand. Kooser says many of the poets he shares are of average intelligence. What they do have in common is a love of words, “they love playing with language.”
Not knowing all the rules of poetry isn’t a reason to stop. In twelve chapters and less than 200 pages, Ted Kooser guides writers through a poetry writing process that is relaxed. It makes the work of writing poetry relaxed and simple. He says that you don’t need to stress about the rules, but understand that it can be an entertaining challenge to work inside the limits of fixed forms.
Explaining How Things Work
In poetry, less is more. There’s a really good explanation of why your poems don’t need to be stuffed with adverbs. When you create poems, you’re giving readers enough information so that you engage their knowledge base and experiences. In a way, your reader actually completes your poem.
Look for the details around these tips:
- A poem’s structure is important. But, you don’t want the structure to overpower the content.
- When you write poems, you can breathe life into them by writing from life.
- Use of metaphor can do a lot for a poem; whereas, overdoing metaphor use can kill a poem.
- “…think of writing your poem as a means of persuasion…”
And, there are many more great tips, descriptions, explanations and examples you’ll read in this book. There are insights, poems samples, poets you can explore further, and ideas for exercises.
The poems Ted Kooser includes in The Poetry Home Repair Manual serve as great examples of the points he makes. He includes the works of other poets, including Henry James, Mary Oliver, and Robert Frost. He even wrote poems expressly for the book. There are inspiring quotes and excerpts from poets and their works. The end result is a great guide that you will return to again and again, like I do.
I first read this book a few years ago, and have picked it up a few times since then. So, I thought I’d share this very useful book in hopes that it helps other aspiring writers of poems. If you find it useful, please drop me a note. And if you have any suggestions that you want to share, let me know that too.
