Writing Poems

This product was in excellent condition, as said by seller. Even though we don't use it very often in class, I still find myself using it to my advantage for help while reading and writing poems.

WRITING POEMS by Michelle Boisseau and Robert Wallace, 6th ed., offers clear advice, appropriate examples, and stimulating suggestions for creating poems. I recommend this text to advanced poetry students who have had at least one semester of creative writing. R. S. Gwynn's Poetry: A Harper Collins Pocket Anthology would complement this text in a junior-level college poetry writing course.

I took an advanced poetry course from Michelle Boiseeau who taught from this text. She was enlightening, helpful, and inspiring. The book was more so. I re-read the book after taking the course and found it even more helpful in reflecting on the course.Michelle Boisseau is one of our most talented and hard-working poets. Her approach is as clearly revealed in this book as any poet could hope to impart. Don't read this book expecting to come out a poet, but read this book and plan on learning a great deal about the process of writing poetry.

I have taught this book in its various editions in the Writers' Program at UCLA for many years. It is simply the best textbook I have ever found to demystify poetry and inspire would-be poets. Not only is the text clear, cogent and lively, but the examples of poetry used -- from Sharon Olds' "Sex Without Love" and Norman Dubie's "A Blue Hog", to Yusef Komunyakaa's "Sunday Afternoons" and Richard Wilbur's "Love Calls Us to the Things of the World" (plus classics such as W.C. Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow" and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken") -- are uniformly first rate. If you want to learn how to write poetry well and do not live near an urban writing center, you can do no better than to buy this book.

The author has an uncanny ability to bring to the surface the hidden elements of the poem that enrich it and establish its quality as art. The selection of poems is made from well known poets vividly illustrating the points he is making. This is a creative writing text of the first order, not an advocacy brief with a social agenda.