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The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies
To Be the Poet
"I have almost finished my longbook," Maxine Hong Kingston declares. "Let my life as Poet begin...I won't be a workhorse anymore; I'll be a skylark." To Be the Poet is Kingston's manifesto, the avowal and declaration of a writer who has devoted a good part of her sixty years to writing prose, and who, over the course of this spirited and inspiring book, works out what the rest of her life will be, in poetry. Taking readers along with her, this celebrated writer gathers advice from her gifted contemporaries and from sages, critics, and writers whom she takes as ancestors. She consults her past, her conscience, her time--and puts together a volume at once irreverent and deeply serious, playful and practical, partaking of poetry throughout as it pursues the meaning, the possibility, and the power of the life of the poet.
A manual on inviting poetry, on conjuring the elusive muse, To Be the Poet is also a harvest of poems, from charms recollected out of childhood to bursts of eloquence, wonder, and waggish wit along the way to discovering what it is to be a poet.
A manual on inviting poetry, on conjuring the elusive muse, To Be the Poet is also a harvest of poems, from charms recollected out of childhood to bursts of eloquence, wonder, and waggish wit along the way to discovering what it is to be a poet.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published September 16, 2002
2 people are currently reading
235 people want to read
About the author
Maxine Hong Kingston
58 books655 followersBest known works, including
The Woman Warrior
(1976) and
China Men
(1980), of American writer Maxine Hong Kingston combine elements of fiction and memoir.
She was born as Maxine Ting Ting Hong to a laundry house owner in Stockton, California. She was the third of eight children, and the first among them born in the United States. Her mother trained as a midwife at the To Keung School of Midwifery in Canton. Her father had been brought up a scholar and taught in his village of Sun Woi, near Canton. Tom left China for America in 1924 and took a job in a laundry.
Her works often reflect on her cultural heritage and blend fiction with non-fiction. Among her works are The Woman Warrior (1976), awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and China Men (1980), which was awarded the 1981 National Book Award. She has written one novel, Tripmaster Monkey, a story depicting a character based on the mythical Chinese character Sun Wu Kong. Her most recent books are To Be The Poet and The Fifth Book of Peace.
She was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by President of the United States Bill Clinton. Kingston was a member of the committee to choose the design for the California commemorative quarter. She was arrested in March 2003 in Washington, D.C., for crossing a police line during a protest against the war in Iraq. In April, 2007, Hong Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for her most recent novel Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace (2006), edited by Maxine Hong Kingston.
She married actor Earl Kingston in 1962; they have had one child, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, born in 1964. They now live in Oakland.
Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at Emma Willard School in September 2005.
She was born as Maxine Ting Ting Hong to a laundry house owner in Stockton, California. She was the third of eight children, and the first among them born in the United States. Her mother trained as a midwife at the To Keung School of Midwifery in Canton. Her father had been brought up a scholar and taught in his village of Sun Woi, near Canton. Tom left China for America in 1924 and took a job in a laundry.
Her works often reflect on her cultural heritage and blend fiction with non-fiction. Among her works are The Woman Warrior (1976), awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and China Men (1980), which was awarded the 1981 National Book Award. She has written one novel, Tripmaster Monkey, a story depicting a character based on the mythical Chinese character Sun Wu Kong. Her most recent books are To Be The Poet and The Fifth Book of Peace.
She was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by President of the United States Bill Clinton. Kingston was a member of the committee to choose the design for the California commemorative quarter. She was arrested in March 2003 in Washington, D.C., for crossing a police line during a protest against the war in Iraq. In April, 2007, Hong Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for her most recent novel Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace (2006), edited by Maxine Hong Kingston.
She married actor Earl Kingston in 1962; they have had one child, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, born in 1964. They now live in Oakland.
Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at Emma Willard School in September 2005.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 18, 2015
“I will be selfish. There’s a wonderful moment I have on the verge of sleep—I have nothing to do but feel my feelings, look at the pictures behind my eyes, and go to sleep. Consider no one but myself. Rest from the social responsibility of prose. Don’t care about people’s antics anymore. I will be socially irresponsible. I will be a poet.”
I’m on a Hong Kingston binge at the moment after having read (and adored) China Men. I always like reading writers who work in different genres. China Men is a book of prose and this one focuses on poetry. It was lovely and a sensitive look, a guide if you will, at how to find poetry in one’s own life. Clearly illustrated by examples from her own life as she approached her 60th birthday helps us see how she found poetry in her life. Examples from travel, culture, and autobiography.
Although I’m not planning on writing any poetry I enjoyed Hong Kingston's thought process on how she found poetry. She included some of her own poetry too and I think it was a reminder of trying, even if your attempts fail; it's all about using one's creativity.
“There is no strict divide between the world and me. Shutting the eyes does not shut out the environment, and my surroundings do not replace my emotions. What I feel influences what I see, and, of course, what I see affects my feelings.”
Her views of aging reminded me of Nin. In a sense, hopeful, accepting, contemplating:
“Old people fade. The black is gone from my hair, and leaving my eyes. My angles lose definition. I will stay put. The tide will come in and in and in.”
She often writes in a questioning manner as part of her process:
“What about dreams? What about them? They blur and leap; they hide, and they reveal. They feel like poems. Except without words. There’s flight, there’s music, but few words. My people in dreams rarely converse. Can I fly to poetry via dream? Find the words for the dream and have my poem? A dream will segue so naturally into morning sometimes, I move through the day sorting what’s dream, what’s real. Awake, the task would be to put visuals, feelings, ideas, beings, into words.”
Lots of useful lessons by a very sensitive writer.
I’m on a Hong Kingston binge at the moment after having read (and adored) China Men. I always like reading writers who work in different genres. China Men is a book of prose and this one focuses on poetry. It was lovely and a sensitive look, a guide if you will, at how to find poetry in one’s own life. Clearly illustrated by examples from her own life as she approached her 60th birthday helps us see how she found poetry in her life. Examples from travel, culture, and autobiography.
Although I’m not planning on writing any poetry I enjoyed Hong Kingston's thought process on how she found poetry. She included some of her own poetry too and I think it was a reminder of trying, even if your attempts fail; it's all about using one's creativity.
“There is no strict divide between the world and me. Shutting the eyes does not shut out the environment, and my surroundings do not replace my emotions. What I feel influences what I see, and, of course, what I see affects my feelings.”
Her views of aging reminded me of Nin. In a sense, hopeful, accepting, contemplating:
“Old people fade. The black is gone from my hair, and leaving my eyes. My angles lose definition. I will stay put. The tide will come in and in and in.”
She often writes in a questioning manner as part of her process:
“What about dreams? What about them? They blur and leap; they hide, and they reveal. They feel like poems. Except without words. There’s flight, there’s music, but few words. My people in dreams rarely converse. Can I fly to poetry via dream? Find the words for the dream and have my poem? A dream will segue so naturally into morning sometimes, I move through the day sorting what’s dream, what’s real. Awake, the task would be to put visuals, feelings, ideas, beings, into words.”
Lots of useful lessons by a very sensitive writer.
December 19, 2014
An unusual little book about a prose writer who decides she is going to will herself to be a poet because "Poets are always happy" and poetry is "all gift, no labour." According to her, "poets do whatever they like...they dine with friends. They go dancing." Some of the things she writes about poets actually made me wonder how many poets this woman knows. Her view of poetry writing is certainly romanticized and parts of it don't fit with my experience at all, but I did enjoy the way she wrote and I felt some of her attempts at poetry were quite successful. I also love that she calls the labour of her novel, her 'longbook.' In the end I agree that writing poetry is about inhabiting the present moment fully. To become a poet is to change the way one lives. Yes!
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May 16, 2024There are books I never want to start reading. Because if I do, they will soon finish. And I'd know what's in them. The mystery gone. The waiting over. The rushing through the pages done. Like I have saved one novel by Hardy. Because if I read it, I would have read all of his books. A little piece of life's excitement would be gone.
This is not one of those books because I have started reading it tonight. I didn't go looking for it on myriad online stores or in dusty old bookshops. It leapt out of the shelf when I was looking for something else, asking to be read at once. The writer bares her thoughts, her days, her thirst to be a poet. It is indulgent, it is courageous, it is intimate: a 60-year-old successful prose writer daring to, declaring to change all about her life. I feel like a fly on the wall of the room where she writes this. What a room, what a view.
I am trying to read it slowly.
This is not one of those books because I have started reading it tonight. I didn't go looking for it on myriad online stores or in dusty old bookshops. It leapt out of the shelf when I was looking for something else, asking to be read at once. The writer bares her thoughts, her days, her thirst to be a poet. It is indulgent, it is courageous, it is intimate: a 60-year-old successful prose writer daring to, declaring to change all about her life. I feel like a fly on the wall of the room where she writes this. What a room, what a view.
I am trying to read it slowly.
April 21, 2019
I had to sit with this book for a little while after finishing it. So many moments that touched my heart. I wasn't feeling the diary poetry at the beginning, but as I go it becomes more and more lovely.
It is a wonderful read - full of thoughts about family, about growing, about getting older, about 'being' in this world - a journey through poetry, through the hope and uncertainty in writing and attempting something new.
It is a wonderful read - full of thoughts about family, about growing, about getting older, about 'being' in this world - a journey through poetry, through the hope and uncertainty in writing and attempting something new.
July 5, 2025
Somewhere in this book, which I read years ago, she says that she is going to start writing poetry because it's so much easier to write than prose. That's when I stopped reading. It's a ridiculous idea. And it's one of the sources of the mess of awful poems that floods the journals.
July 10, 2017
Ia ingin menjadi penyair setelah menghasilkan sejumlah novel yang menyenangkan.
November 22, 2010
Very much enjoyed this little book (111 pages).
Helped me to be still.
Here's a snippet I liked:(p.66)
I avidly look at women with long white hair.
I walk fast, catch up with them, and look at their faces.
They're always beautiful.
They always smile back at me.
Always.
From Library Journal:
On the opening page of this slim volume, Kingston (creative writing, Univ. of California, Berkeley) declares that after decades of writing acclaimed memoirs and fiction such as The Woman Warrior, China Men, and Tripmaster Monkey she has decided to devote herself to writing poetry. This work, based on her 2000 William E. Massey Lectures at Harvard, explores this new dimension of her life, mostly written in verse. Kingston relays her past, how she looks at herself, and how she works to take on the life of a poet. What results is a multilayered book that is irreverant, serious, and playful but always instructive. She gives her readers the opportunity to see an accomplished artist at work in the creative process a new one for her. This book should appeal to all who have had the urge to put pen to paper.
Helped me to be still.
Here's a snippet I liked:(p.66)
I avidly look at women with long white hair.
I walk fast, catch up with them, and look at their faces.
They're always beautiful.
They always smile back at me.
Always.
From Library Journal:
On the opening page of this slim volume, Kingston (creative writing, Univ. of California, Berkeley) declares that after decades of writing acclaimed memoirs and fiction such as The Woman Warrior, China Men, and Tripmaster Monkey she has decided to devote herself to writing poetry. This work, based on her 2000 William E. Massey Lectures at Harvard, explores this new dimension of her life, mostly written in verse. Kingston relays her past, how she looks at herself, and how she works to take on the life of a poet. What results is a multilayered book that is irreverant, serious, and playful but always instructive. She gives her readers the opportunity to see an accomplished artist at work in the creative process a new one for her. This book should appeal to all who have had the urge to put pen to paper.
August 22, 2008
A short and delightful read (finished in one sitting: about 2 hours). I sense an almost sarcastic, sardonic wit to it (listing off your to-do list as "poetry") which really begs one to reconsider how one defines "poetry" at all. There was only one poem which really struck out to me: "Dreaming Awake". The book is fairly autobiographical and reveals the writer's coming of age ("oh, I'm 60 now... after x years writing prose, I'm going to WILL myself into being a "poet") and seems more cathartic in that regard. She is a wonderful writer, nonetheless and organizes her thoughts in a nice way that makes one smile. My one contention would be that she seems to negate/disapprove/disregard any sort of "sad" poetry and only seems to engage in cheerful topics: surely we know tragedy makes for some of the most beautiful imagery even if we personally loathe the situation.
March 17, 2010
I enjoyed reading what was in her mind before the Oakland fires and after she finished the replacement of that lost novel. Loved her point about poets expressing the now and not the past or the made-up future. Enjoyed reading about what it is like to be an older lady gracefully aging. Also, as an alum that just missed her on campus, I enjoyed the Cal and Berkeley references. One point I liked to make with my own kids was her cultural reference to growing up with one or two toys, verses how life is here in America and kids have so many toys. That's how I grew up too.
did-not-finish
March 22, 2017The first part of the book is so good. Maxine talks about her intense desire to take a break from prose writing and explore the world from a poet's eyes. She talks about her poet father, his approach to poetry, his ink bottles and books. She almost makes you want to start your own journey to be a poet with her. The second part felt more like poetry tutorials to me. But the book had me lost in the beautiful world of poetry where we constantly try to understand its meaning and marvel in it at the same time.
January 6, 2010
More about her intent to become a poet than how to do so, or even how she attempted to do so.
Interesting peripheral information about growing up Asian in America; about relationships among a broad range of writers; about Chinese poetry, etc.
Interesting peripheral information about growing up Asian in America; about relationships among a broad range of writers; about Chinese poetry, etc.
June 22, 2014
Maxine Hong Kingston, while working on "the longbook," decides to experiment with poetry, and the results are beautiful. I highly recommend this book. My copy is even signed! I heard her speak at Bryn Mawr College years ago.
March 8, 2019
Still good. Wonderful meditation on poetry, and also the rest of living, dying. This and Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver have a special shelf in my heart.
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January 3, 2012. . . No comment other than it took less than an hour to read .
June 5, 2012
I liked it because it was different. I had to learn to be quiet; it made me quiet. That said, it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea.
November 6, 2022
The book is slim but compact on elements of being a poet. This leaves a lot of room for other texts onnathe art of poetry.
I will return to it to pick up the loose ends. For now, I am satiated and can try my hand at poetry.
I will return to it to pick up the loose ends. For now, I am satiated and can try my hand at poetry.
November 5, 2021
4.5 stars.
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December 20, 2017It felt, at times, like I was reading Maxine's journal.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews