Description
Write a Poetry Review excerpted from the article by the same titlein Tweetspeak https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2015/07/21/how-to…
Glynn Young, writer and reviewer, recommends the following steps:
Who: I like to know who the poet is, what (if anything) has been previously published, if they
have a website and how they describe themselves, and, if available, to see a photo. This is
information that helps shape a review, and it’s important for a reader to know. The “who, ” even
if brief, places a personality around the poems under consideration.
What: What kind of poetry is it? What form does it follow (or does it have a form)? What is the
subject of the poems in the collection?
When: Is this the poet’s first collection? A chapbook? Where does it fall in the poet’s writing
career? Does the collection make use of childhood or old-age themes and ideas? Is time an
important factor in the poems?
Where: Does the volume have a geography? Robert Frost has New England, Carl Sandburg had
Chicago, Walt Whitman had the Civil War hospitals of Washington and his home in New York,
and Emily Dickinson had Amherst, Massachusetts. Is geography or a sense of place a strong
element in the collection being reviewed?
Why: What is the poet trying to accomplish? What are the themes and ideas the poet is
attempting to communicate?
How: How does the poet use language? What are the key metaphors (and there are almost
always key metaphors)? What images are employed? What does all of this tell us about what’s
going on in these poems?
Other Information:
Review how to quote poetry in a text (see MLA link below). So that it is clear for everyone, you
will write your book review using the MLA format. Remember to check the models of
professional book reviews in MO1;)
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/m…
mla_formatting_quotations.html
Below the title of review (yes you need a catchy title), make sure to include the title of the
book, the author, the press, date of publications, number of pages, and price.
For instance:
Title of Review
The Tradition, Jericho Brown, Copper Canyon Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-55659-486-1,77 pages,
$17.
The first paragraph of the text of the review starts here (indent each time you start a new
paragraph) . . .
