The craft of poetry: a primer in verse

Pages: 192 Format: PDF Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 20/04/2021
eISBN-13: 9780300256161

A wonderfully accessible handbook to the art of writing and reading poetry-itself written entirely in verse

How does poetry work? What should readers notice and look out for? Poet Lucy Newlyn demystifies the principles of the form, effortlessly illustrating key approaches and terms-all through her own original verse. Each poem exemplifies an aspect of poetic craft-but read together they suggest how poetry can evoke a whole community and its way of life in myriad ways.

In a series of beautiful meditations, Newlyn guides the reader through key aspects of poetry, from sonnets and haiku to volta and synecdoche. Avoiding glosses and notes, her poems are allowed to speak for themselves, and show that there are no limits to what poetry can communicate. Newlyn’s timeless verse will appeal to lovers of poetry as well as to practitioners, teachers, and students of all ages.

Onomatopoeia

You’d play here all day if you had your way-
near the stepping-stones, in the clearest
of rock-pools, where water slaps and slips;
where minnows dart, and a baby trout flop-flips.

Writing: a user manual : a practical guide to the craft of planning, starting and finishing a novel

Pages: 272 Format: PDF Publisher: A & C BLACK
Published: 16/02/2012
eISBN-13: 9781408157411

You are a writer and you have a killer book idea. When your project starts to take off you will find yourself managing a writhing tangle of ideas, possibilities and potential potholes. How do you turn your inspiration into a finished novel? Writing a User’s Manual offers practical insight into the processes that go into writing a novel, from planning to story development, research to revision and, finally, delivery in a form which will catch the eye of an agent or publisher.David Hewson, a highly productive and successful writer of popular fiction with more than sixteen novels in print in twenty or so languages, shows how to manage the day to day process of writing.Writers will learn how to get the best out of software and novel writing packages such as Scrivener, which help you view your novel not as one piece of text, but as individual linked scenes, each with their own statistics, notes and place within the novel structure. As you write, you will need to assemble the main building blocks to underpin your artistry : story structure; genre – and how that affects what you write; point of view; past, present or future tense; software for keeping a book journal to manage your ideas, research and outlining; organization and more.The advice contained in this book could mean the difference between finishing your novel, and a never-ending work in progress. An essential tool for writers of all kinds.