Teacher’s Notes

on Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, by Janet Burroway

We start out with another excellent quote:

"Good poems are the best teachers," says Mary Oliver (307).

We then move on toward a definition of poetry. You see that it can be hard to define this type of creative writing. In fact, this chapter just scratches the surface of the genre. I’ll suggest other books at the end of these notes, just as JB does at the end of this chapter. These books may be helpful to a beginning poet. I agree with Mary Oliver, though, and say that you should read as much poetry as possible--as much of everything as possible, really, because everything you read influences your writing somehow--but when you analyze a poem try to figure out why you like it or why you don’t like it. What can you take from this poem to apply to your own writing? Consider purpose and audience.

This page concludes with a quote from one of my favorite poets, W.H. Auden. He defines poetry as "memorable speech" (307).

That is an important definition, since "poetry predates writing" (308).

As JB notes, the earliest poems were entirely verbal.

Did you know that Homer could not read or write? He was illiterate, but he could present epic poetry eloquently enough that people remembered it and wrote it down for future generations. Some tools and techniques poets use to aid memory are rhyme, rhythm, meter, alliteration, assonance, comparisons or figures of speech. JB also points out that these tools and techniques help by "intensifying and compressing meaning" (308).

Another gem from Mary Oliver: "Free verse is, of course, not free" (321).

I think her idea of the "larger social forces at work" leveling out the playing field, so to speak, for writers did help free verse take a stronger foot hold--no pun(s) intended. However, formal verse is still very much alive and widely practiced.

Examine the "Basic Prosody" in our book (Appendix C) and check out the suggested books at the end of this chapter and these notes for more information on patterns to practice. and helpful advice for beginning poets.

These are the tools that help poets mean what they mean to mean and so very much more--the layers of language and meaning that entwine in the meeting of minds when a work is shared. What you see, you see, may not be what I see--or meant for you to see, if I wrote the poem. What you take from a poem of mine may not be what I have left there for you; but if you have it, then it is yours; share your find with me, and it becomes all the more mine. Conversations of this sort add life to the poem through close analysis.

JB concludes: "Words have denotation--a primary meaning--and also connotation, which...is partly personal (310). She gives great advice on "trial and error" with metaphor and cliche on pages 311 and 312. The try this on each of these pages are worth our time.

JB explains this fairly well for a person who writes mainly fiction. She calls upon some voices of authority in the poetic field, like Donald Hall, to help illustrate that poetry uses as many tools and techniques as possible to say one thing and "more-than-one-thing" in as many ways as possible (313). Every word counts and sometimes each word counts several times.

I like the try this on page 316. Try it.

" The line, when a poem is alive in its sound, measures: it is a proposal about listening," says Robert Hass (318).

The line, as Robert Frost said, makes a kind of sentence sense.

This, so that even when a line is not a sentence it can stand alone and mean something.

It connects with the reader, and takes the reader forward into the next line to find out more, or makes the reader lean back into the last line to reflect for a while on what has gone before (or maybe reflect back on his/her own life that has gone before)--before continuing on into the rest of the poem.

See the list of More books to read on page 322 in our book.

Here are a few more:

The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing, by Richard Hugo

Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by M.D. Herter Norton)

Patterns of Poetry: An Encyclopedia of Forms, by Miller Williams

(This has been my form poem bible all these years--a superb book)

How Does A Poem Mean? by John Ciardi and Millar Williams

(This book is out of print, but can still be found in Used Book stores

and the Used Book section of Amazon.com--a great text, mine is well-thumbed.)

Also, this seems like a good find--I have yet to examine it, but the reviews are good:

The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, by Lewis Turco