The Practicing Poet Update

My new craft book, The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics, is just about to enter the world. I can’t wait to share it with you!

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,” and  “Crafting Surprise.” The concepts become progressively more sophisticated, moving on to “Achieving Tone,” “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.  Here’s a LIST of all the contributors.

The Craft Tips were contributed by 30 accomplished poets, the model poems by another 30 fabulous poets. I’m especially excited about section X, “Publishing Your Book,” which assumes that most poets aspire to have a first or a next book published. April Ossmann and Alberto Rios both contributed outstanding and useful pieces on manuscript organization.

I’m also excited for readers to get their first view of the ten Top Tips lists, one per section. I invited ten amazing poets to each contribute a list of their best pieces of poetry wisdom. You will love these!

Also included are 60 sample poems written to the prompts. You will fall in love with many of these poems, all contributed by subscribers to my monthly Poetry Newsletter. They suggest the directions and possibilities of the prompts.

People keep saying that I’ve gotten this book put together quickly. But really, I’ve been working on it for more than three years. Now I’m just about ready to launch this new baby. Stay tuned.

The Crafty Poet Now in a Revised Edition

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This is an update about my craft book, The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop. Many of you are already familiar with this book as it now approaches its third birthday. You already know that it includes work by such poets as Kim Addonizio, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Sydney Lea, Jan Beatty, and Baron Wormser. You know that the book includes Craft Tips, model poems, prompts based on the model poems, sample poems written to the prompts, and Q&As with poets. However, I want to let you know that I am now carrying this title with Terrapin Books which will also publish the sequel, The Crafty Poet II, sometime this summer.

I also want to let you know that Terrapin Books has just issued a Revised Edition of the original book. This edition includes a full table of contents which includes titles of all poems, including the sample poems, and all the poets' names. Another significant change is the addition of an Index at the back of the book. The Index includes the names of all poems, poets, and craft tips. The Index should be especially handy for teachers using the book in a class.

For this revision I switched to white paper from cream for enhanced readability. I also moved page numbers from the center bottom to bottom right and left for easier paging through the book.

Other than those changes, the book remains the same. If you already have the original Crafty, you don't need the new one. All pagination and content remain the same. However, if you don't have the book and were planning to get it, get the revised edition. If you are planning to use the text for a course or a workshop, you will want the revised edition. And of course, if you're planning to give the book as a gift, you'll want the revised one.

Happy Birthday to The Crafty Poet

It’s now been a year since The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop  entered the world. It’s been a very exciting year and I couldn’t be happier with the reception the book has received.

One of the sources of happiness has been knowing that a number of colleges and universities have adopted the book as a textbook. As a former teacher, it’s thrilling to have my book enter the classroom. These schools include:

Bellevue College, WA
California State University, Long Beach
Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA
Kean University, NJ
Lake Superior State University, MI
Lone Star College System, TX
Seattle University, WA
Sussex County Community College, NJ
Montana State University, Billings
University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas
Valparaiso University, Indiana
Washington & Lee University, VA                                         

I was also delighted to learn that The Crafty Poet will be the textbook for a course called “Read It, Write It,” soon to be taught at a Pennsylvania prison.

The book was also used as the textbook in an online summer course, “The Art of Poetry Writing,” taught by poet Melanie Faith and sponsored by WOW (Women on Writing).

I’ve received notes from a number of poets who are using the book in poetry workshops. Last month the book was used as the textbook in a workshop taught at a Sufi gathering in Mendocino, California. This fall the book will be used in a workshop led by C.A. LaRue for the Jambalaya Poets in Louisiana. LaRue recently held a contest for a free virtual spot in the workshop.

I was fortunate to have two local book parties, both held at libraries. Both of these were attended by more than a dozen of the poets in the book, all of whom read and discussed their poems from the book.

I took my show on the road in May and gave a group presentation at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Again, I was joined by a number of poets from the book. We had a fabulous time.

Bloggers and online reviewers have been very generous in the attention and praise given to the book. An early review was written by Martha Silano at her blog, Blue Positive. A more recent review was written by Lynn Domina at her review site.

The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop is reviewed by editor Joshua Hjalman Lind in the Hartskill Review, a new print journal. Lind says "...these prompts are helpful, guiding the reader through exercises very much like a personal trainer who motivates us to get off the couch." He also says that the book is "useful as a collection of fine poems, from which one can learn much about how poetry works." And he concludes with this: "It is clear that Lockward is a sensitive reader and mentor, and her efforts to compile and communicate useful writing tips will help a lot of aspiring poets." I was pleased to see that several of the contributors to this issue of the journal are also contributors to the book: Kelly Cherry, Janet McCann, Joel Allegretti, Wendy Ingersoll, and Charlotte Mandel.

Back in the fall The Crafty Poet was named a Best Book for Writers by Poets & Writers. The Crafty Poet is currently #1 on the list of Best Books on Writing Poetry at Goodreads.

Thanks for being part of the party! Cupcakes for everyone!

The Crafty Poet: Unveiling the Cover

My book, The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop, is moving right along. The galleys have been proofed and returned. Page numbers have been added to the Contents. And the cover has been designed.

In spite of having proofread the manuscript countless times before sending it off to my publisher months ago, I found some errors that I'd overlooked back then. Now I wonder how the heck did I miss that? and that? With this recent reading, each time I went through the manuscript I found a few more things I'd missed. Mostly small stuff like an extra space, but I want the book to be as close to right as I can make it. (I'm avoiding saying "perfect.")

Organizing this book was a huge challenge as it contains work from more than two years, work from this blog and from my Poetry Newsletter, work written by me and work written by other poets. In the Newsletter it doesn't matter if the poem and prompt coordinate with the Craft Tip, but for the book I needed to logically organize the material. I made a list of everything I planned to use in the book. Then I stared at that list for days/weeks until a plan began to form. That plan, of course, changed through multiple drafts, but once I had a plan, I knew I was going to get the job done.

Because the book includes writing contributed by other poets, the big challenge in editing/polishing was to achieve consistency of style throughout the text. Some writers, for example, put commas around "too" when it means "also." Other writers do not. Some writers use the period key to create an ellipsis. Others use Option plus the semi-colon key. Either is correct but the look is slightly different. I wanted all the ellipses to look the same. (I have come to hate the ellipsis.) Stuff like that was sort of crazy-making, but I'm still here. And I'm thrilled with the book and can't wait to have it here. That should happen this summer.

In the meantime, here's an advance view of the cover. I'm very happy with this. It feels just right for a craft book.

Mapping the Line: Poets on Teaching

If you're looking for some ideas to fire up your own poetry or that of your students, Mapping the Line: Poets on Teaching provides terrific material for poets, teachers, and students. Editor Bruce Guernsey is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Eastern Illinois University where he taught for twenty-five years. He is also an accomplished poet with six full-length collections, most recently From Rain: Poems, 1970-2010. His work has several times been featured on Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry column. The poem, Back Road, was featured just this past March.

Following his retirement, Guernsey became the editor of Spoon River Poetry Review. As editor he introduced a regular feature called "Poets on Teaching." That was one of my favorite parts of each issue of the journal.

During his tenure as editor, Guernsey would invite one well-established poet who was also a teacher, one per issue, to write an article about the craft of poetry and to include an assignment that teachers and poets might use. When he left the journal, Guernsey took the feature with him. He has now gathered those articles, as well as some he subsequently solicited, into Mapping the Line: Poets on Teaching. I am happy to be included in this outstanding book and happy to recommend it to you.

The book begins with a Foreword by Ted Kooser. That is followed by twenty essays, covering a wide range of topics. For example, there's "Who's Writing This?" by Cecilia Woloch, "Metaphor as Form" by David Baker, and "Three Exercises for Free Verse" by Wesley McNair. My own contribution is "The Extravagant Love Poem," a discussion of the blazon and anti-blazon with an exercise employing metaphors.

Other authors include Baron Wormser, Kevin Stein, Andrea Hollander, M.B. McLatchey, Robert Wrigley, Doug Sutton-Ramspeck, Guernsey, David Baker, Miho Nonaka, Todd Davis, Sheryl St. Germain, Charlotte Pence, Megan Grumbling, Laurie Lamon, Betsy Sholl, and Claudia Emerson.

Teachers will find this a very useful and informative collection. Poets will find it instructive and inspirational. Students will find that it contains a traveling workshop. This book will be a happy addition to your classroom or your desk at home.