The Craft of Poetry: Structure and Sound

by Harvey Stanbrough

In this book, we’ll discuss the structure of the poem, canto, stanza, and line, even to the molecular level, discussing how the sounds of certain letters or letter combinations in certain words affect the reader; whether and why the length or brevity of a line or stanza has a certain effect on the reader; how to construct sentences within the poem so they are most effective; the use of punctuation in poetry; the use of meter in poetry, intentional or otherwise; alliteration, assonance, and consonance; the purposes and types of rhyme and its effectiveness or ineffectiveness; the art and necessity of observation, the ability of the poet to sense our world intimately, then report what she senses to the reader; and, overall, how to siphon from the ether an abstract, an emotion, and put it into fixed form, a poem, in such a way that the reader can experience the same emotion. We’ll also discuss common misconceptions.

ebook

First published February 28, 2011

About the author

Harvey Stanbrough was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas, and baked in Arizona. After having survived a 21-year civilian-appreciation course in the US Marine Corps, Harvey managed to sneak up on a bachelor’s degree at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales in 1996. Harvey has written and published nine nonfiction ebooks on writing, including Punctuation for Writers and Writing Realistic Dialogue & Flash Fiction, which are also available in print, and his very popular The Essentials of Digital Publishing. His comprehensive poetry collection, Beyond the Masks, was nominated for the National Book Award and he’s published three other poetry collections. Finally, he’s published four short story collections (Vignettes from a C-130, Six Years in May, The Well, and Stories from the Cantina), plus numerous other short stories. He most enjoys writing magic realism, and one of his major characters, Juan-Carlos Salazár, actually has his own blog at CantinaTales.com. In all, Harvey's works have been nominated for the Frankfurt Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Pushcart Prize and the National Book Award. Harvey spoke at writers’ conferences around the country for several years, but now he teaches his Writing the World Seminars mostly in southeast Arizona. However, he plans to offer those in webinars soon.