The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (original 2005; edition 2005)

I've been dipping in and out of this, rather than reading it straight through once. It isn't a textbook, if that's what you're looking for, but it is a very helpful guide. Stephen Fry's tone is light, funny, but his explanations and examples are good, and his attitude toward poetry -- that anyone can do it -- is refreshing. He's got a good overview of a lot of forms. ( )

This was actually very interesting, but unless you're actually going to write poetry, there's not much point in just reading it through for pleasure.
If I was at a point in my life where I needed things to occupy my time, this would be a great course in how to write (traditional) poetry, but I have way too many other things I'd rather be doing right now, frankly.
Still, his examples are hilarious as you might expect from Fry. ( )

This is all the technicalities about writing poetry. Very interesting, how to do it "correctly," but it's much more fun to write it the way you feel it rather than tapping your fingers and wavering your voice to make sure you have enough of the correct beats! Very enjoyable for the knowledge itself. ( )

A friend bought me Stephen Fry's guide when I decided to become more serious about writing poetry; it proved to be an excellent gift. Fry writes lucidly about the different aspects of prosody -- form, meter and rhyme -- and provides exercises to help the reader practice and gain confidence. The book proceeds at a reasonable pace, taking time to firmly establish concepts before moving on. I have since bought several books listed under "Additional Reading" and have quite enjoyed them.

"The Ode Less Travelled" served as an excellent springboard for my adventures in poetry. In addition to giving me a basis in writing formal poetry, it has helped to change the way I interact with and read poetry. By sensitizing my ear to form and meter, it has elevated these aspects to a level of conscious awareness which has added a new dimension to my appreciation of poetry. I was also quite pleased with the inclusion of "exotic" forms (such as the pantoum) and have since tried my hand at writing some of these more structured forms.

I have to admit, some of the exercises took me quite a while (often because I didn't feel like doing them but refused to continue reading until I had, which led to me laying aside the book for long periods). If you're not a fan of Stephen Fry, you may find his quirky humour and the casual tone unappealing; being fond of Fry's work in general, I found the style delightful.

"Ode" is a wonderfully fun, light introduction to the rich world of poetry, well suited for either an aspiring poet or an avid consumer. ( )

There’s no shame in admitting you play guitar in your spare time, or that you are an amateur photographer, or an avid baker, or a dabbler in watercolors. But there’s something a little odd in saying you write poetry for fun, says Stephen Fry.

Fry, believing that poetry can be a fun way to play with language, wants to give aspiring poetic hobbyists what other hobbyists have in abundance—a guide to improve their play. The point, says Fry, is to have fun, whatever you choose to wax poetic about. Fry’s goal is to give potential poets familiarity with poetic tools and techniques and some practice using them. And he does so in a way that is both fun and informative (even if it didn’t make me into the next John Donne or Gerard Manley Hopkins).

Each chapter touches on a different poetic technique or form. Fry covers meter, rhyme, form, and diction. The chapters are filled with examples of Fry’s own verse as well as the verse of great poets from the past and present. And the book also includes 20 exercises in which readers are asked to mark poetic meters, make lists of rhymes, and more than anything else, write poems. Assignments include writing lines of iambic pentameter on uncompleted chores that are niggling at you, dactylic pentameter on cows, and a ballad about a man whose wife sucked out his eyes.

Some might get a bit sniffy about the fact that Fry is encouraging the use of what some would consider outmoded forms in a day when free verse is supposed to be the right way to be poetic, but Fry, in a section titled “Stephen gets all cross” cleverly makes a case for form—and calls Ezra Pound, one of the founders of modernist poetry, many rude names in the process. There’s nothing like a good rant from an intelligent, witty person whom you happen to agree with.

This book was great fun for me. I doubt I’ll ever become much of a poet myself. I did the assignments, but I lack the patience and discipline to really take the time to craft something good. But then again, I found myself composing couplets in my head during the week after the assignment to write rhyming couplets, so who knows?

See my complete review at Shelf Love ( )