poetics – bibliography
Reading material and resources for writers and students of poetry… exploration and appreciation, composition and criticism, reading and teaching…
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Writing Companion, an online resource to help people experience themselves as writers, i.e.:
- Give themselves different ways to think about and improve their writing.
- Help them refill their creative well so that they always have something to write about.
- Show them the joy of writing—as a way to make sense of their world, sing their stories, capture the past, indulge in make-believe, have fun with their imagination, and feel the magic of creating with words.
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Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. A sweeping ecological, linguistic, and philosophical look at our current predicament as human beings – our spiritually- and ecologically-fatal detachment from the realities of earth and water and air; from everything alive and meaningful in the earth around us – and some ways to reattach. (You’ll have to read it for yourself - it may not sound like it, but this book really is about poetry.)
Ellis, Sherry, Ed. Now Write! Fiction Writing Exercises From Today’s Best Writers and Teachers. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006. Simple, enjoyable writing experiments and activities for creativity, dealing with writer’s block, etc. - also includes much more technical writing exercises.
Friedman, Bonnie. Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer’s Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Geddes, Gary. Ed. 20th-Century Poetry and Poetics. Fourth Edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996. Large text, with emphasis on Canadian poets. Arguably the single most useful and important book on the subject.
Goldberg, Natalie. Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life. New York: Bantam Books,1990.
_____. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Boston: Shambhala, 1986.
Lilburn, Tim. Ed. Poetry and Knowing: Speculative Essays and Interviews. Kingston: Quarry Press, 1995. Various Canadian poets’ responses to the questions “What does poetry know?” and “How does poetry know?”
Packard, William. The Poet’s Dictionary. New York: HarperCollins, 1989.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Stephen Mitchel, Trans. New York: Vintage Books, 1986.
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haiku
Terebess Asia Online - excellent and extensive collection of links to haiku poets and websites.
The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words. ”For haiku composition, on a superficial level whether a season word refers to early, middle, or late in a given season–or to the whole season–means little; presumably a single haiku reflects the events and emotional values of a particular time. But as we connect more and more with the depths of the haiku tradition, we begin to understand that a great haiku makes use of seasonal themes in a deeper way.”
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Basho, Matsuo. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. Trans. Nobuyuki Yuasa. New York: Penguin, 1966. Essential Basho; his haibun (prose with haiku) travelogue masterpiece. Excellent introductory and explanatory notes.
_____. On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho. Trans. Lucien Stryke. New York: Penguin, 1985.
Harris, Peter, Ed. Zen Poems. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1999. Not just haiku, this book includes selections from several centuries of Chinese and Japanese poetry.
Henderson, Harold G. Haiku in English. Tokyo: Tuttle, 1967. “For everyone whose attention has been caught by haiku.”
Yasuda, Kenneth. Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature and History. N. Clarendon, VT: Tuttle, 1957. Large and thorough work dealing with history, translation issues, technical and mechanical aspects of poetry, etc. By a well-known Japanese scholar. (Some might be turned off by the idea of rhyming haiku.)
Skelton, Robin. Islands. Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 1993.
_____. A Way of Walking. Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 1994. Both Skelton titles: a Canadian poet’s explorations of haiku and other traditional Japanese forms.
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