A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
A Poet Who Can Know It!
This slender guide by Mary Oliver deserves a place on the shelves of any
budding poet. In clear, accessible prose, Oliver (winner of both the
Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for poetry) arms the reader
with an understanding of the technical aspects of poetry writing. Her
lessons on sound, line (length, meter, breaks), poetic forms (and lack
thereof), tone, imagery, and revision are illustrated by a handful of
wonderful poems (too bad Oliver was so modest as to not include her
own). What could have been a dry account is infused throughout with
Olivers passion for her subject, which she describes as a kind of possible
love affair between something like the heart (that courageous but also shy
factory of emotion) and the learned skills of the conscious mind. One
comes away from this volume feeling both empowered and daunted.
Writing poetry is good, hard work.
Personal Review: A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver

Reading Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook feels a bit like settling down
with the magazine Cook's Illustrated. The magazine is published by
people who love growing, preparing and eating food and who love the
traditions and history of cooking. An issue might contain articles explaining
how the combination of baking soda and baking powder work in pancakes,
or the chemical effects of salting eggs before or after scrambling them.
Then there are recipes for dishes one might actually imagine cooking -pot
roast, or blueberry pie. After reading Cook's Illustrated, I think, "I can do
this," and I value more deeply the daily beauty of putting ingredients
together in new and old ways.
Mary Oliver loves words like the Cook's Illustrated people love food. She
loves the sounds of words, the rhythm of words, the combinations of words
in poems. She loves the history of poetry, its forms and patterns. She
shares this love with the reader, so that poets and readers of poetry walk
away from her book thinking, "I can do this, maybe. Maybe if I work very
hard, if I read poets, if I practice and imitate, as she suggests." Whether
one writes or not, the reader leaves with a deeper appreciation of the
ingredients and structure of poems. In this short volume Oliver explains
how various meters work, how the sounds of words contribute to a poem,
and how free verse is deeply connected to traditional forms. She lays out
a feast, with well-chosen poems to illustrate her lessons and leaves us
hungry for more. She could have included a more international menu,
perhaps, but this slim volume stimulates the appetite and encourages the
reader to put on an apron, choose ingredients with care, and begin to
cook.
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