The Poetry Gymnasium: 110 Proven Exercises to Shape Your Best Verse, 2d ed.

by Tom C. Hunley

Overview

This expanded edition adds sixteen new exercises designed to inspire creativity and help poets hone their skills. Each exercise includes a clearly-stated learning objective, historical background matter on the particular subgenre being explored, and an example written by undergraduates at Western Kentucky University. The text also analyzes work by leading American poets including Billy Collins, Denise Duhamel and Dean Young. The book's five chapters correspond with the five canons of classical rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476675824
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	310
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Tom C. Hunley is a professor in the MFA/BA creative writing programs at Western Kentucky University. His work has appeared in many literary periodicals, such as TriQuarterly, Five Points, North American Review and New York Quarterly. He is the author of several poetry collections and lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
I. Invention Exercises 5
II. Arrangement Exercises 90
III. Style Exercises 167
IV. Memory Exercises 245
V. Delivery Exercises 266
Copyright Acknowledgments 297
Index 299

Editorial Reviews

If writing poetry is exercise--and it is, physically and emotionally, as callisthenic as running, jumping, breathing--then we have here in Hunley’s The Poetry Gymnasium our barbell, our track, our ever-present coach goading us on. This book should be in every writing classroom: inventive, necessary, vital for both student and professor, Hunley’s book is a staple in every workshop I teach.”—Gary McDowell, Belmont University, author of Mysteries in a World That Thinks There Are None

From the Publisher