The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet WithinPenguin, 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: |
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 |