A distinctive collection of more than 90 effective poetry-writing exercises combined with corresponding essays to inspire writers of all levels.

A distinctive collection of more than 90 effective poetry-writing exercises combined with corresponding essays to inspire writers of all levels.

"I write hungry sentences," Natalie Diaz once explained in an interview, "because they want more and more lyricism and imagery to satisfy them." This debut collection is a fast-paced tour of Mojave life and family narrative: A sister fights for or against a brother on meth, and everyone from Antigone, Houdini, Huitzilopochtli, and Jesus is invoked and invited to hash it out. These darkly humorous poems illuminate far corners of the heart, revealing teeth, tails, and more than a few dreams. I watched a lion eat a man like a piece of fruit, peel tendons from fascia like pith from rind, then lick the sweet meat from its hard core of bones. The man had earned this feast and his own deliciousness by ringing a stick against the lion's cage, calling out Here, Kitty Kitty, Meow! With one swipe of a paw much like a catcher's mitt with fangs, the lion pulled the man into the cage, rattling his skeleton against the metal bars. The lion didn't want to do it— He didn't want to eat the man like a piece of fruit and he told the crowd this: I only wanted some goddamn sleep . . . Natalie Diaz was born and raised on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation in Needles, California. After playing professional basketball for four years in Europe and Asia, Diaz returned to the states to complete her MFA at Old Dominion University. She lives in Surprise, Arizona, and is working to preserve the Mojave language.

Organized into ten sections with each devoted to a poetic concept, The Practicing Poet begins with "Discovering New Material," "Finding the Best Words," "Making Music," "Working with Sentences and Line Breaks," "Crafting Surprise," and "Achieving Tone." The concepts become progressively more sophisticated, moving on to "Dealing with Feelings," "Transforming Your Poems," and "Rethinking and Revising." The final section, "Publishing Your Book," covers manuscript organization, book promotion, and presentation of a good public reading. The book includes thirty brief craft essays, each followed by a model poem and analysis of the poem's craft, then a prompt based on the poem. Ten recyclable bonus prompts are also included. Ten Top Tips lists are each loaded with poetry wisdom from an accomplished poet. The Practicing Poet pushes poets beyond the basics and encourages the continued reading, learning, and writing of poetry. It is suitable as a textbook in the classroom, a guidebook in a workshop, or an at-home tutorial for the practicing poet working independently. The craft essays, poems, and top tips lists include the work of 113 contemporary poets.

Introduces different kinds of poems, including headline, letter, recipe, list, and monologue, and provides exercises in writing poems based on both memory and imagination.

With passion, wit, and good common sense, the celebrated poet Mary Oliver tells of the basic ways a poem is built-meter and rhyme, form and diction, sound and sense. Drawing on poems from Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others, Oliver imparts an extraordinary amount of information in a remarkably short space. "Stunning" (Los Angeles Times). Index.