Books for Beginning Poets

Poet's Market:

We receive numerous inquiries from beginning poets seeking publishers. Although Poetry Daily does not accept original submissions, many of the publications we feature do accept them. We recommend Writers Digest Books' 2006 Poet's Market as the best place to start for poets who wish to have their work published.

Recent and Classic Books

In "O Body Swayed to Music," a series of articles written specially for Poetry Daily, the poet R. T. Smith, author of Trespasser and Editor of Shenandoah, reviews recent and classic books on poetry writing and reading. Approaching these books in the context of his own development as a poet, Smith asks "what important discoveries do I wish I had made earlier, and what books would have led me to them?"

• Part I: "O Body Swayed to Music"

• Part II: "Old Dogs, New Tricks"

• Part III: "O Body Swayed to Muses"

• Part IV: "In Our Uncertainties"

Helpful Books:

A Poet's Guide to Poetry, Mary Kinzie
All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification, Timothy Steele
Understanding Poetry, Brooks & Warren
How Does a Poem Mean?, Ciardi & Williams
The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing, Richard Hugo
Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse, John Hollander
Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, Paul Fussell
Poet's Guide: How to Publish and Perform Your Work, Michael Bugeja
The Art and Craft of Poetry, Michael Bugeja
Making Our Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry, Kenneth Koch
The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, Addonizio & Laux
A Poetry Handbook, Mary Oliver
Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse, Mary Oliver
The Art of Writing: Lu Chi's Wen Fu, Sam Hamill, tr.
The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide, Robert Pinsky
The Poem's Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody, Alfred Corn
Patterns of Poetry: An Encyclopedia of Forms, Miller Williams
The New Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Lewis Turco
Writing Poems, Peter Sansom
The Structure of Verse: Modern Essays on Prosody, Harvey Seymour Gross, ed.
The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Preminger & Brogan
Writing Poems, Wallace & Boisseau
You Can Write Poetry, Jeff Mock