In this anthology, award-winning poet Robert Pinsky demonstrates how one learns to write poetry by first learning to read it. Divided into four sections—Freedom, Listening, Form, and Dreaming Things Up—Pinsky presents his mentors’ work to encourage the reader to take a practical approach, with informed pleasure and sharp interest in the craft. Included are exemplary works from poets such as Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, and William Carlos Williams. “A guide like this book aims to make useful hints and suggestions for the journey,” writes Pinsky in the preface. “For me, this anthology will succeed if it encourages the reader to emulate it by replacing it, or supplementing it.”
