Good Book: The POET'S COMPANION

I've been dabbling in poetry writing for about a year-and-change now. I don't write very often, mostly when the feeling hits, but I'd like to write more. One of the problems I've had is that I never really learned "how" to write poetry. I never read a book, took a class, or attended a seminar. I've read some poetry, and have had friends who were poets, and even used to go to poetry readings when I produced my public access poetry show, WORDS!, to recruit poets and get inspiration, but I never really felt confident about myself as a poet.

I actually started out trying to write song lyrics, which is quite different from what I'd call "serious" poetry. Lyrics have their own thing to them in that they have to fit whatever music they're attached to. You can't fall too in love with what you do because it's bound to change somehow. I have yet to put any of my words to music, but I'm looking forward to it.

I made my first attempt at "real" poetry, when I was going through some emotional drama-trauma about a year or so ago. One day I just started writing. I have to say the stuff was pretty dark, and not all that great, but it helped exorcise some pretty nasty feelings I had at the time. It was a start. Since then, I've continued to dabble from time to time. The problem, like I said before, is that I didn't really know "how" to write. Enter The Poet's Companion.

The Poet's Companion (by poets Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux) is a book I've had for a while now, but never read past the first few pages. I got it from a book club I belonged to a couple years ago. I only now decided to read it, and so far, so good; I'm almost done with the first section. I know that's not very much to comment on, but it's enough for me to know I'd like to finish it. There are lots of cool exercises in them that I believe will help me a lot with my writing. I really look forward to continuing it.

From what I've read so far, I'd recommend it highly.