Moonlight Musings

What Are Your Favourite Books for Writers?

(Don’t tell me you don’t have any!)

I’ll tell you mine:

For sure you’ll know the ones at the top of my list. Always and forever, Natalie Goldberg’s WRITING DOWN THE BONES and its sequel, WILD MIND. A friend introduced me to BONES soon after it was first published in 1986. I immediately loved and embraced it, and have come back to it repeatedly over the years. WILD MIND was published in 1990, and I was given that one by another friend soon after. ('More of the same good stuff,' she said. Indeed it is, and not merely repetitive but taking things a little further.) 

I knew about free association, in its psychological context and as a tool for writers – but Goldberg’s concept of ‘timed writings’ made it easy and delightful, an all-purpose method. And she presents it in a most engaging way, her own writing endearing and positively inspirational. There are a lot of other great pieces of advice for writers in these books, too, all drawn from personal experience and all revving up my excitement about writing.

The other one I keep coming back to, published in 1994, is Julia Cameron’s THE ARTIST’S WAY, her 12-week course for ‘discovering or recovering’ the artist within. It’s not only for writers, though her most famous method (a way of dumping extraneous thoughts out of your head, leaving your mind clear to create) consists of writing ’morning pages’ every day. I write them, I lapse after a while, I eventually remember and start again…. I have actually done the full 12-week course, which has other components as well, several times over.

So those are at the top of the list, and please note that both authors have also written other excellent books for writers, which are worth exploring too. In fact, I own and use a number of them.

The precursor of these books was Dorothea Brande’s BECOMING A WRITER. I think I read about it somewhere, a long time ago; some writer I admired recommended it highly enough for me to seek it out and get my own copy. Back then it was the book – before Goldberg and Cameron produced theirs.

From Brande I learned about making an appointment with yourself every day, to write for 15 minutes, scheduling it in at the beginning of the day; and to treat this as ‘an appointment of honour’ which must not be broken except in direst emergency (e.g. your dog gets injured and must be rushed to the vet). If you do have to break it, you immediately reschedule it in your head – just as if you were negotiating an important meeting with a VIP. (You are!) 

She has a number of other effective ideas too. I know they work; I tried them all. This book was first published in 1934, was re-issued in 1983, is still available in paperback, and now includes Kindle and Audible editions.

I should also mention the ultimate book for journallers: Tristine Rainer's THE NEW DIARY, first published in 1979, with a foreword by Anais Nin. It was groundbreaking and thorough, and I believe everything that has been written since about journal writing owes a debt to Rainer. 

These are books for writers in general, as distinct from poets – in fact Brande assumes fiction writers – though on the whole they are as useful to poets as anyone else. There are many other good books for writers, and several of them are on my shelf. The ones I’ve mentioned just happen to be the ones I most highly recommend. Also, they have not gone out of print, which tells you something.

What about books specifically for poets? 

Yes, there are a number of them too.  They come in different kinds.  

The How

There are those which discuss the poetic basics such as metaphor, metre and form (i.e. prosody: the art / science of versification). I think we all need to come to grips with those things. I believe we need to know our craft. 

I started making poems when I was very young; and a family friend who was a teacher explained to me about prosody when I was maybe nine. He advised me which book to get to study it further. It was the late Australian poet James McAuley’s VERSIFICATION. I see with surprise that it is still available in paperback and hard cover from Amazon.

I don’t know what else is available because I haven’t needed to know – except for Stephen Fry’s THE ODE LESS TRAVELLED, which I encountered somewhere and dipped into. In scholarly mode rather than wearing his comedian’s hat, he obviously knows what he's talking about and expresses it clearly. Lots of people declare that they love and value this book.

The What

Contrary to what I just said about the necessity to learn prosody, a friend whom I consider a brilliant poet writes only in free verse. However, she does know her craft; its just that it’s a craft which doesn't include formal metrical or rhyme schemes. 

She likes books which suggest new subjects to write about and where to find yet more; various ways to revive flagging inspiration; and technical questions – such as whether to write in the first person, if breath dictates line length, and how to circumvent the cliché. Kim Addonizio’s ORDINARY GENIUS and Sage Cohen’s WRITING THE LIFE POETIC are examples. They are excellent, comprehensive books, and do include some discussion of form. I own both, and still refer to them, but they are not the kind I like best of all.

The which 

(i.e. which way?)

I love free verse too, and probably use it most often, but I also enjoy playing with form. And I’m particularly interested in process – in the various ways by which one might create a poem: not only form and technique but also approach and structure; not only craft and pattern but also games and disruptions. 

Each of the books I most often turn to these days when I want help has recently gone into a Volume II (so, four books in all). They are WINGBEATS: EXERCISES AND PRACTICES IN POETRY, by Scott Wiggerman and David Meischen, and THE CRAFTY POET: A PORTABLE WORKSHOP, by Diane Lockward.

Both consist of chapters written by a number of different poets, with tips, exercises, and examples. They suggest crazy things like turning a poem around and writing it backwards to see where that leads, or detaching oneself from the left margin and wandering all over the page to learn what effects that might create. They show you in detail how to make a poem funny; or instruct you to use a different, specific constraint for every line – mentioning a flower here, counting syllables there…. They have you writing really bad sonnets on purpose; or trying out ways to make the title play a larger role in a poem. They remind me that art is play. I have enormous fun with them.

Note: Diane Lockward also publishes a free newsletter you can subscribe to by email, from which both volumes of THE CRAFTY POET were drawn, and which offers opportunity for (optional) participation as well as learning.

So what are your favourite books for writers, and why?