A review by loxeletters
Writing Poetry: Where Poems Come from and How to Write Them by David Kirby

informative

2.5

This book was interesting but did not hold up in comparison to "Teach Yourself Writing Poetry" by Sweeney and Williams, which I was reading at the same time.

Parts I enjoyed: 
  • description of the poetry scene at the time of publication (improvisational free verse, formal free verse, new formalism)
  • Practical-orienged glossary of poetry terms, ft. some examples
  • Variety of poets/poems featured, including more obscure formal types

Criticisms:
  • This book felt somewhat self-congratulatory, featuring (imo) a too large amount of poems by the author himself
  • The "exercises" at the end of each section about a type of poem (the concept of which I found quite limiting in and of itself) felt generic and under-developed. Not as specific as in other guides (eg see above), and also not as many overall
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