Much more than a guidebook to writing and revising poems, this manual has all the comforts and merits of an enlightening conversation with a wise, patient friend, one willing to share everything he’s learned about the art he spent a lifetime learning.

Ted Kooser offers tools, insights, and instructions (and warnings against instructions). Using examples from his own rich literary oeuvre and from the work of a number of successful contemporary poets, he schools us in the critical relationship between poet and reader, which is fundamental to what he believes is poetry’s ultimate purpose: to reach other people and touch their hearts.
An index has been added to this Bison Books edition.