PopSugar '16 #21--Book recommended by a family member.
When I was younger, I often had those Anne of Green Gables moments of delight while discovering some new book, music, author, idea. It happens much less frequently now. Perhaps life gets in the way? As I'm writing this, my son has interrupted me several times, my words and thoughts flying away each time. Regardless of the whys, there are only two times in recent memory when I felt that bubbly, joyful, thankful feeling. Once, while listening to John Darnielle speak at the 2016 Festival of Faith and Writing. And once while reading this book.

I was lucky enough to attend an evening class in which Tania Runyan lead us through her first chapter. The crowd was fairly diverse in age, education level, and familiarity with poetry. I was pleased with how nearly everyone at some point in the class shared a thought or feeling. That gathering certainly primed me for the reading of this book.

The book is slim, a conversation between Runyan and the reader. She writes in the Introduction, "Think of [the book] less as an instructional book and more as an invitation. For the reader new to poetry, this guide will open your senses to the combined craft and magic known as poems. For the well versed, if you will, this book might make you fall in love again." This is a perfect example of Runyan's wit and generosity.

In each chapter, Runyan takes a stanza or two of Billy Collins's poem as a guide to reading poetry. She talks about the mechanics of a poem (imagery, sound, line), as well as the meaning(s), authorship, and the poems own identity. She simply (and thoughtfully) walks through poems with the reader, and includes an anthology of poems for the reader to approach on her own.

Runyan celebrates the art of the poem, without being didactic. For instance, "There is something about sounds that can not be explained, and although I threw out literary terms like alliteration, consonance, and assonance, most poets write without consciously employing those techniques. Those "techniques" happen because they feel right, because they are right.." And when she says she threw them out there, she means it. She briefly defines those terms when talking about sound in a poem, then moves on with the above sentence.

I wish I had a professor or teacher who had taken this approach to reading poetry!

Before the class I mentioned earlier, I was unfamiliar with both Billy Collins' poem "introduction to poetry" (the poem that gives the book its form) as well as the first chapter's teaching poem "The Moon is a Comma, a Pause in the Sky" by Kelli Russell Agodon. When I picked up the book again a year later, I was excited to read the lines of those poems again, thrilled to hear them aloud.

I read this book alone, but I would love to read it again with a group.
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I read lots of books of this type — pretty much all I can get my hands on. I'm rating it 4 stars, taking into consideration its aims and audience. It's not reallly for the experienced poet — but it's full of good tips, reminders, examples, and prompts and includes a review of Peter Murphy's revision suggestions (Murphy's Revision Style Sheet). It gave me a lot of ideas for new poems of my own and I'll use some of the prompts in teaching and online workshopping. ( )