The Bow & the Well: A Poetry Workbook

Every poem starts with a mess.Think of a poem on a page. See the title, the byline. Notice the shape of its stanzas, the empty, bright space that cocoons them. A finished poem looks, at first glance, like a pearl: perfect, smooth, unassailable. But its polished surface hides the rough core of its creation—all the botched phrases and failed metaphors that were necessary steps in the writer’s learning process. No matter how perfect it appears, every poem starts with a mess, with a page interrupted by ink. The Bow and the Well invites students and beginners to embrace that mess, guiding you through a series of hands-on writing experiments with a playful, irreverent touch. Combining practical instruction with room for discovery, this workbook helps you craft your own poems while leaving space for trial and error. The author draws on years of experience as a professional writing coach to distill key aspects of the poem-writing process into modules that encourage you to write through moments of difficulty, and then keep going. You can adapt each module to your unique creative process, allowing you to work through the text at your own pace, whether with friends or individually. So grab your workbook. Grab your pen. (We tend to enjoy black gel pens in .38. Or mechanical drafting pencils in .05. Or a plain old #2.) It’s time to write. Read more