Wingbeats II: Exercises & Practice in Poetry

by Scott Wiggerman (Editor)

WINGBEATS II: EXERCISES & PRACTICE IN POETRY, the eagerly awaited follow-up to the original WINGBEATS, is an exciting collection from teaching poets—58 poets, 59 exercises. Whether you want a quick exercise to jump-start the words or multi-layered approaches that will take you deeper into poetry, WINGBEATS II is for you. The exercises include clear step-by-step instruction and numerous example poems, including work by Lucille Clifton, Li-Young Lee, Cleopatra Mathis, Ezra Pound, Kenneth Rexroth, Patricia Smith, William Carlos Williams, and others. You will find exercises for collaborative writing, for bending narrative into new poetic shapes, for experimenting with persona, for writing nonlinear poems. For those interested in traditional elements, WINGBEATS II includes exercises on the sonnet, as well as approaches to meter, line breaks, syllabics, and more. Like its predecessor, WINGBEATS II will be a standard in creative writing classes, a standard go-to in every poet's library.

Genres: Poetry, Writing

360 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2014

About the author

Scott Wiggerman is the author of "Leaf and Beak," "Presence," "Vegetables and Other Relationships" and the publisher of Dos Gatos Press' annual "Texas Poetry Calendar," now in its nineteenth edition. He is also the editor of the "Big Land, Big Sky, Big Hair" anthology, of a haiku anthology, "Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga," as well as the best-selling "Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry" and "Wingbeats II." His latest edited tome is "Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems" (2016).

Reviews

[R.G. Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poets, teachers, librarians and students: Wingbeats II is an essential part of your collection, a compendium of nearly 5 dozen poetry writing exercises from poets such as Tony Hoagland, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Cleopatra Mathis and Ada Limon. Diane Lockward graciously included one of my poems as an illustrative example of her own exercise.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every bit as useful as the first one!

[Cassie Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wingbeats and Wingbeat II are both packed with uniquely engaging writing challenges that my students embrace with enthusiasm.

[Diane Lockward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I have a bookshelf full of books on craft, I’m happy to add one more to the shelf: Wingbeats II: Exercises & Practice in Poetry, edited by Scott Wiggerman and David Meischen. This is the follow-up volume to the original Wingbeats which appeared in 2011. The new volume contains 59 exercises contributed by 58 poets. The book is organized into six sections: Jump-Starting the Poem; Elements of Poetry; The Role of Repurposing; Structure and Form; The Power of Words, Names, Numbers; and Complicating the Poem. Each section contains approximately ten exercises. Each exercise includes some preliminary instruction—or intersperses it throughout the prompt—so your knowledge of craft is enhanced. Each exercise contains several poems that illustrate the prompt. You will undoubtedly find yourself more drawn to some prompts than to others, but you will just as undoubtedly find many that work for you regardless of your current level of proficiency. Among the 58 poets are Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Ada Limon, and Jill Alexander Essbaum. If this book isn’t yet on your shelf, do yourself a favor and get it there.

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so honored to have an exercise in this book. I recommend it to any professor of poetry. There is such a diverse array of ways to enter a poetry practice here. And the exercises come from a wide range of hard-working contemporary poets.