Do you know how to smell a poem?
In Inside Out: Poems
on Writing and Reading Poems, Marjorie Maddox offers the reader a
delightful suggestion. “Keep following the trail of scent to
sniff out the meaning.”
Maddox also tells us how to befriend a poem. “Invite him home for dinner but don’t
insist on rhyme.”
And she explains that “Much of what he has to say lies
between the lines.”
This clever collection of poems and writing exercises begins
with verses on how to see, hear, taste, smell, and touch a poem and then delves
into poetic devices and forms. Teachers should find ample inspiration to
motivate student writing.
For example, these glorious lines from “Fishing for Sestinas.”
“the
poems themselves sew together our world,
the
way fish in waves thread themselves in and out,
the way dreams swim their own
stories”
And this couplet invites writers to try a villanelle.
“To
write a villanelle, think like a bird
that sings a song that you’ve already
heard.”
The 27 poems in this collection are followed
by 9 creative writing exercises including fun suggestions for writing persona
poems, clerihews, and sonnets.
A 3 page glossary provides succinct definitions for every
term referenced in the poems. Inside Out by Marjorie Maddox is an
excellent resource to jump start creativity in the classroom or at home.
Jacqueline Jules
