Poetry Craft Books, Poet Memoirs, Collections of Essays on Poetry, Etc.
There are a lot of books on this list, but if you are serious about writing poetry,
I believe these books are essential. These are not books of poems,
but books about poetry and poets. I think this list represents a good variety for poets,
no matter where you are in your life of poetry. The books are listed alphabetically
by the authors' last names.
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These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson by Martha Ackman
Ordinary Genius by Kim Addonizio
Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions From a Writing Life by Kim Addonizio
The Poet’s Companion by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux
Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry 2013th Edition by Frederick Luis Aldama
Orange Alert: essays on poetry, art, and the architecture of silence by Kazim Ali
Other Traditions by John Ashbery
Writing Metrical Poetry by William Baer
The Practice of Poetry edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell
My Way: Speeches and Poems by Charles Bernstein
Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem: A Guide to Writing Poetry by Wendy Bishop
Writing Poems by Michelle Boisseau, Hadara Bar-Nadav, Robert Wallace
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms by Eavan Boland
In the Blue Pharmacy: Essays on Poetry and Other Transformations by Marianne Boruch
Poems and Their Making: A Conversation edited by Philip Brady
Bread Out of Stone: Recollections, Sex, Recognitions, Race, Dreaming, Politics by Dionne
Brand
In the Chair: Interviews with Poets from the North of Ireland edited by John Brown
What Will Suffice: Contemporary American Poets on the Art of Poetry, Edited by Christopher
Buckley and Christopher Merrill
Poet’s Guide: How to Publish and Perform Your Work by Michael J. Bugeja
The Art and Craft of Poetry by Michael J. Bugeja
Conversations with Richard Wilbur, Edited by William Butts
How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context: Poetic Culture from Antiquity Through the Tang (How to Read Chinese Literature) by Zong-qi Cai
A Little History of Poetry by John Carey
Beside the Shadblow Tree: A Memoir of James Laughlin by Hayden Carruth
Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays by Hayden Carruth
Allen Ginsberg, Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews 1958-1996 edited by David Carter
Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief by Victoria Chang
First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems That Captivated and Inspired Them, Edited by Carmela Ciuraru
Yusef Komunyakaa, Condition Red: Essays, Interviews, and Commentaries edited by Radiclani Clytus
The Poem's Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody by Alfred Corn
Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton by Gail Crowther
Writing Poetry: Creative and Critical Approaches by Chad Davison and Gregory Fraser
When the Rewards Can Be So Great: Essays On Writing and The Writing Life, Edited by Kwame Dawes
Talk Yuh Talk: Interviews with Anglophone Caribbean Poets by Kwame Dawes
Writing the Sacred into the Real by Alison Hawthorne Deming
Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry by Stephen Dobyns
The Art of Description: World into Word by Mark Doty
The Poetry Dictionary by John Drury
Creating Poetry bu John Drury
Tradition and the Individual Talent by TS Eliot
Open Papers by Odysseas Elytis, translated by Olga Broumas and T. Begley
The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self by Annie Finch
A Poet's Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry by Annie Finch
Poem, Revised: 54 Poems, Revisions, Discussions edited by Robert Hartwell Fiske and Laura Cherry
What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance by Carolyn Forché
How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse by Thomas C. Foster
The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Father by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
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How Poems Think by Reginald Gibbons
Renditions by Reginald Gibbons
Writing Poetry to Save Your Life by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
The Dream Of a Broken Field by Diane Glancy
Robert Hayden: Essays on the Poetry Edited by Laurence Goldstein and Robert Chrisman
City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara by Brad Gooch
Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet by Charlotte Gordon
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics edited by Roland Greene, Editor-in-Chief
Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems edited by Susan Grimm
Shelf Life: Essays, Memoirs, and an Interview by Thom Gunn
Death to the Death of Poetry: Essays, Reviews, Notes, Interviews by Donald Hall
Places We Return To: A Celebration of Twenty Years Publishing Fine Literature, Edited by Joan Cusack Handler & Gabriel Cleveland
Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo
Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Joy Harjo
What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World by Robert Hass
How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch
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The Essential Poet’s Glossary by Edward Hirsch
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry by Jane Hirshfield
The Art of Voice by Tony Hoagland
Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft by Tony Hoagland
Streams: Life Secrets for Writing Poems and Songs by Sandra Hochman
The Cambridge Guide to Reading Poetry by Andrew Hodgson
Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse by John Hollander
Aphrodite's Daughters: Three Modernist Poets of the Harlem Renaissance by Maureen Honey
The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo
The Muse in the Machine: Essays on Poetry and the Anatomy of the Body Politic by T. R. Hummer
Conversations with Rita Dove edited by Earl G. Ingersoll
Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee edited by Earl G. Ingersoll
Acts of Mind: Conversations with Contemporary Poets by Richard Jackson
The Writer’s Process by Anne Janzer
The Poet’s Handbook by Judson Jerome
June Jordan's Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint Edited by June Jordan and Lauren Muller
Conversations with Sonia Sanchez by Joyce A. Joyce
Walt Whitman: A Life by Justin Kaplan
A Poet’s Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie
The Judge Is Fury: Dislocation and Form In Poetry by Mary Kinzie
The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them by David Kirby
Proses: On Poems and Poets by Carolyn Kizer
Several Short Sentences about Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg
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The Magical Language of Others: A Memoir by E. J. Koh
The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser
In the Palm of Your Hand by Steve Kowit
The Poet's Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, David Weiss
Measurable Terms by Arlyn LaBelle
Written in Water, Written in Stone: Twenty Years of Poets on Poetry edited by Martin Lammon
The Whiskey of our Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience and Change Agent, Edited by Quraysh Ali Lansana and Georgia A. Popoff
The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience by Ann Lauterbach
Rhyme's Rooms: The Architecture of Poetry by Brad Leithauser
My Lost Poets: A Life in Poetry by Philip Levine
The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics (Paperback) by Diane Lockward
The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft by Diane Lockward
Memoirs, by Robert Lowell, Edited by Steven Gould Axelrod and Grzegorz Kosc
Elizabeth Bishop and Translation by Mariana Machova
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Creativity: Where Poems Begin by Mary Mackey
Brush Up Your Poetry! by Michael Macrone
On Poetry by Glyn Maxwell
The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Frances Mayes
Twenty Questions by J. D. McClatchy
Sparks from the Anvil: The Smith College Poetry Interviews edited by Christian McEwen
Broken English: Poetry and Partiality by Heather McHugh
By Herself: Women Reclaim Poetry by Molly McQuade
Langston Hughes by W. Jason Miller
The Witness of Poetry by Czesław Miłosz
Conversations with Elizabeth Bishop edited by George Monteiro
Good Measure: Essays, Interviews, and Notes on Poetry by Robert Morgan
Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft by Bill Moyers
The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets by Bill Moyers
The Complete Memoirs by Pablo Neruda
Coming After: Essays on Poetry by Alice Notley
Quote Poet Unquote: Contemporary Quotations on Poets and Poetry edited by Dennis O’Driscoll
A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse by Mary Oliver
Poetry as Survival by Gregory Orr
Poets Teaching Poets: Self and the World by Gregory Orr and Ellen Bryant Voigt
Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women's Poetry in America by Alicia Suskin Ostriker
Some Necessary Angels: Essays on Writing and Politics by Jay Parini
How To Be Well-Versed in Poetry edited by E. O. Parrott
How to Read a Poem . . . and Start a Poetry Circle by Molly Peacock
Radical Artifice: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media by Marjorie Perloff
The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination by Carl Phillips
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Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry by Carl Phillips
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My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing by Carl Phillips
The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky
Finding Them Gone: Visiting China's Poets of the Past by Bill Porter
Winning the Dust Bowl by Carter Revard
Poetry and Commitment by Adrienne Rich
Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations by Adrienne Rich
What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics by Adrienne Rich
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
On Poetry and Craft by Theodore Roethke
A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line by Emily Rosko
Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures by Mary Ruefle
The Life of Poetry by Muriel Rukeyser
A Difficult Grace: On Poets, Poetry, and Writing by Michael Ryan
Intimate With Walt: Whitman’s Conversations With Horace Traubel edited by Gary Schmidgall
The Monster Loves His Labyrinth: Notebooks by Charles Simic
Writing the Australian Crawl by William Stafford
You Must Revise Your Life by William Stafford
Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation by William Stafford
The Answers Are Inside the Mountains: Meditations on the Writing Life by William Stafford
Getting the Knack: 20 Writing Exercises by William Stafford
The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry edited by Frank Stewart
The Poet’s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary by Frances Stillman
World's Hieroglyphic Beauty: Five American Poets by Peter Stitt
The Making of a Poem by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland
Spreading the Word: Poetry and the Survival of Community in America by Ross Talarico
The New Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics by Lewis Turco
The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar: Essays on Poets and Poetry by Helen Vendler
Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form by Helen Vendler
The Breaking of Style: Hopkins, Heaney, Graham by Helen Vendler
The Art of Syntax: Rhythm of Thought, Rhythm of Song by Ellen Bryant Voigt
The Flexible Lyric by Ellen Bryant Voigt
Japanese Poetry Forms: A Poet's Guide by James P Wagner and Nick Hale
From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke: Straw for the Fire edited by David Wagoner
Dissonance (if you are interested) by Rosmarie Waldrop
A Million MFAs Are Not Enough edited by Charles Harper Webb
This Art: Poems About Poetry edited by Michael Wiegers
Making a Poem: Some Thoughts about Poetry and the People Who Write It by Miller Williams
Patterns of Poetry: An Encyclopedia of Forms by Miller Williams
I Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet by William Carlos Williams
The Rag Picker’s Guide to Poetry: Poems, Poets, Process edited by Eleanor Wilner and Maurice Manning
Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet by Christian Wiman
Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil by C.D. Wright
One Big Self: An Investigation by C.D. Wright
Further Adventures in Monochrome by John Yau
The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction by Dean Young
Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder
