The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

Front Cover
Penguin, 2006 - 357 pages
I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry... I believe poetry is a primal impulse within all of us. I believe we are all capable of it and furthermore that a small, often ignored corner of us positively yearns to try it.
—Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled

Stephen Fry believes that if one can speak and read English, one can write poetry. Many of us have never been taught to read or write poetry and think of it as a mysterious and intimidating form. Or, if we have been taught, we remember uncomfortable silence when an English teacher invited the class to "respond" to a poem. In The Ode Less Travelled, Fry sets out to correct this problem by giving aspiring poets the tools and confidence they need to write poetry for pleasure.

Fry is a wonderfully engaging teacher and writer of poetry himself, and he explains the various elements of poetry in simple terms, without condescension. His enjoyable exercises and witty insights introduce the concepts of Metre, Rhyme, Form, Diction, and Poetics. Aspiring poets will learn to write a sonnet, on ode, a villanelle, a ballad, and a haiku, among others. Along the way, he introduces us to poets we've heard of, but never read. The Ode Less Travelledis a lively celebration of poetry that makes even the most reluctant reader want to pick up a pencil and give it a try. BACKCOVER: Advanced Praise:
“Delightfully erudite, charming and soundly pedagogical guide to poetic form… Fry has created an invaluable and highly enjoyable reference book.”
Publishers Weekly

“A smart, sane and entertaining return to the basics… If you like Fry’s comic manner… this book has a lot of charm… People entirely fresh to the subject could do worse than stick with his cheerful leadership.”
The Telegraph(UK)

“…intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed.”
Observer(UK)

"If you learn how to write a sonnet, and Fry shows you how, you may or may not make a poem. But you will unlock the stored wisdom of the form itself."
—Grey Gowrie, The Spectator(UK)

“…intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed.”
Observer(UK)

 

Contents

Metre
1
Endstopping Enjambment and Caesura
21
Four Beats to the Line Mixed Feet
74
AngloSaxon Attitudes Poetry Exercise 7
106
Coleridges
119
Good and Bad Rhyme? A Thought Experiment
147
Form
177
The Ballad Poetry Exercise 12
191
Cento The Clerihew The Limerick
261
Haiku Senryu Tanka Ghazal Luc
274
Petrarchan and Shakespearean Curtal
281
Shaped Verse Pattern Poems Silly Silly Forms
293
Diction and Poetics Today
307
Poetic Vices Ten Habits of Successful Poets that They
320
INCOMPLETE GLOSSARY OF POETIC TERMS
329
APPENDIX Arnauds Algorithm
351

Heroic Verse Poetry Exercise 13
202
The Villanelle Poetry Exercise 14
242
FURTHER READING
357
Copyright

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About the author (2006)

Stephen Fry is a bestselling novelist, comedian, and actor who has appeared in such films as A Fish Called Wanda, Wilde, A Civil Action, Bright Young Things, Gosford Park, and V for Vendetta.

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