Poetry: A Survivor's Guide

Playful and serious, unforgiving and compassionate, Poetry: A Survivor's Guide offers an original take on a subject both loved and feared. In a series of provocative and inspiring propositions, the act of reading a poem is made new, and the act of writing one is made over. Questions of poetry's difficulty, pretension, and relevance are explored with insight and daring. In an age of new media and social networking, this handbook-cum-manifesto provides fresh reverence for one of our oldest forms of art.

Mark Yakich is Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans, USA, Editor of the New Orleans Review, and a poet and novelist. He is the author of Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross (National Poetry Series, Penguin 2004), The Making of Collateral Beauty (Snowbound Chapbook Award, Tupelo 2006), and The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin 2008). His first novel, A Meaning for Wife (Ig Publishing, 2011), was selected as the #1 Small Press Highlight of 2011 by the National Book Critics Circle. His next poetry collection Spiritual Exercises is forthcoming with Penguin.

I. Introduction: What Is a Poem?
II. Reading Poetry
III. Writing Poetry
IV. Poetic Practices: How To Live with Poetry
Bibliography
Index