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Seeing the Blue Between: Advice and Inspiration for Young Poets

“For a class, or to work up enthusiasm about writing – and not just poetry – one could hardly do better for young people than this fresh and inviting collection.” – KIRKUS REVIEWS

How do you write poetry? It’s a question with as many answers as there are poets. Now, in this unprecedented volume, thirty-two internationally renowned poets provide words of wisdom and inspiring examples of their own work for new poets everywhere.

Compiled by anthologist extraordinaire Paul B. Janeczko, a talented poet in his own right, this outstanding resource offers a fascinating spectrum of advice from those who know best – ranging from “break a few rules” to “read Shakespeare’s sonnets in the bathroom” to “revise each poem at least thirty-two times.” Not surprisingly, the most frequently made suggestion from these seasoned poets is simply to “read, read, read!” This rich volume – an ideal resource for classroom teachers and a beautiful gift for budding writers of all ages – offers the perfect opportunity to do just that.

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Quote Poet Unquote: Contemporary Quotations on Poets and Poetry

“One of the best-read men in the Western world” is how Poetry Review describes Irish poet-critic Dennis O’Driscoll. Quote Poet Unquote, his compilation of contemporary quotations on all things poetry-related, proves that judgment spot on. The book grew out of O’Driscoll’s column “Pickings and Choosings” for Poetry Ireland Review, and contains nearly two thousand smart sayings obsessively gleaned from six hundred sources—including powerhouse critics, prize-winning poets, world leaders, and newspaper headlines. The voices in this volume are by turns provocative, deadpan, humorous, and inspirational:

“If you dribble past five defenders, it isn’t called sheer prose.”—Tom Leonard

“I do not give the honorific name of ‘poetry’ to the primitive and the unaccomplished.”—Helen Vendler, The New York Times

“I started a PhD in English at the University of Chicago because I loved poetry—which I now realize is like saying I studied vivisection because I loved dogs.”—Michael Donaghy, Verse

Organized by headings as forthright as “What Is It Anyway?” as playful as “Prose and Cons” and “No, Thanks” (on bad poetry), this collection is both a reference work and a supremely entertaining take on the poetry world. Quote Poet Unquote offers incontrovertible evidence—thousands of pieces of it—that poetry, and the passionate discourse it generates, is alive and kicking.

Dennis O’Driscoll, former editor of Poetry Ireland Review, is the author of seven books of poetry and a collection of essays. He lives in Ireland.