How to Make Poems: Form and Technique

Introducing general education students as well as English majors to creative writing, Heather Sellers’ How to Make Poems: Form and Technique offers an inspiring, lively, and straightforward new book on how to write effective poems.

How to Make Poems is aligned with the pedagogical needs of instructors charged with helping students learn the basic vocabulary and craft elements required to study and write poetry — form and technique. Sellers describes the process in just over 150 pages by using manageable, sequenced modules, ensuring students are writing poems—and experiencing success—right away.

This poetry handbook is written especially for and directly to today’s college students, a new generation of learners. The students before us are well-intentioned, socially aware, engaged, and they are expecting—demanding—readings that are whole-heartedly representative in terms of race and gender. They also expect brevity (“tldr”) and clarity and resist an overly formal voice and tone.

Thus, How to Make Poems: Form and Technique is designed to reel in students with its clear and casual approach, delicious new poems by global poets, and interesting, accessible, no-fail writing prompts; teachers will find a streamlined yet robust book they can lead with confidence, face-to-face or online.

How to Make Poems: Form and Technique

Introducing general education students as well as English majors to creative writing, Heather Sellers’ How to Make Poems: Form and Technique offers an inspiring, lively, and straightforward new book on how to write effective poems.

How to Make Poems is aligned with the pedagogical needs of instructors charged with helping students learn the basic vocabulary and craft elements required to study and write poetry — form and technique. Sellers describes the process in just over 150 pages by using manageable, sequenced modules, ensuring students are writing poems—and experiencing success—right away.

This poetry handbook is written especially for and directly to today’s college students, a new generation of learners. The students before us are well-intentioned, socially aware, engaged, and they are expecting—demanding—readings that are whole-heartedly representative in terms of race and gender. They also expect brevity (“tldr”) and clarity and resist an overly formal voice and tone.

Thus, How to Make Poems: Form and Technique is designed to reel in students with its clear and casual approach, delicious new poems by global poets, and interesting, accessible, no-fail writing prompts; teachers will find a streamlined yet robust book they can lead with confidence, face-to-face or online.

 

Now Available!

ISBN: 979-8-9858492-8-8 – VitalSource Digital-Only – $29

Table of Contents

PART ONE: Introduction to Poetry

Chapter 1: What is Poetry For?
Chapter 2: Tips for Poetic Success
Chapter 3: Poetic Forms and Poetic Techniques
Chapter 4: Foundational Techniques for Reading and Writing Poetry

PART TWO: Open Forms and Closed Forms

Section One: Open Forms

Chapter 5: The ABC Poem
Chapter 6: The Ode
Chapter 7: The List Poem
Chapter 8: The Apostrophe and the Epistle
Chapter 9: The Elegy
Chapter 10: The Cento

Section Two: Closed Forms

Chapter 11: The Ghazal
Chapter 12: The Villanelle
Chapter 13: The Pantoum
Chapter 14: The Triolet
Chapter 15: The Sonnets
Chapter 16: The Sestina

PART THREE: Poetry in the World

Chapter 17: Building Your Audience
Chapter 18: Revision Versus Editing
Chapter 19: Poetry Communities

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Denise Duhamel, Distinguished University Professor of Creative Writing at FIU

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Heather Sellers’ How to Make Poems is an inviting, all-encompassing guide for those curious about the ins and outs of poetry. An ideal e-textbook with objectives and goals, How to Make Poems is also a primer in all the ways poetry can enrich a person’s life. Sellers focuses on the pleasures of reading poetry and focuses on the fun of writing it. She has gathered invaluable resources—websites dedicated to poetry as well as video and audio recordings—so that students can develop their own aesthetics and tastes. A brilliant introductory text!

Chelsea Dingman, Winner of the National Poetry Series

How to Make Poems is a text that will not only be indispensable to beginning instructors of poetry, but to even the most learned instructor of many years. In addition to being a highly organized teaching resource that offers pedagogical alternatives to grading creative work, it is a text that students will love for its brevity, conversational tone, and multidisciplinary writing applications. Including open and closed forms, along with diverse examples of contemporary poems, the text caters to both creative writing majors and non-majors, equipping students to further their writing and publishing interests beyond the course.
As an ebook with recorded lectures, this text will be an invaluable resource for its accessibility and affordability, as well as its transportability, in a time when the world has moved significantly toward electronic resources, providing necessary teaching and learning possibilities for the poetry classroom.

This upcoming title will be available on VitalSource’s digital, interactive platform, Bookshelf, which offers the following features:

  • LMS single-sign on capabilities.
  • Online and offline access.
  • A full suite of study tools (highlighting, note-taking, bookmarks, flashcards, etc.).
  • Chapter quizzes available for easy upload to any LMS.
  • Inclusive Access/First Day eligibility.
  • Full compatibility with Section 508 Accessibility Standards.

Section One:  Difficult Things Can Be Good For Your Brain
Section Two:  Poetry Teaches You Marketable Skills
Section Three:  Empathy Matters
Section Four:  You Need an All-Purpose Communication Toolkit
Section Five:  It’s Fun

Section One:  Read Widely
Section Two:  Listen to (and watch!) Poets Read Their Work Aloud
Section Three:  Follow Your Passion
Section Four:  Let It Go
Section Five:  Choose Subject Matter Carefully
Section Six:  Embrace Your Weirdness

Section One:  Poetic Forms
Section Two:  Writing Techniques
Section Three:  Table of Poetic Forms and Techniques

Section One:  Foundational Techniques for Reading a Poem
Section Two:  Foundational Techniques for Writing a Poem

Section One:  Recap
Section Two:  The Alphabet Poem
Section Three:  Technique: Enjambment
Section Four:  Technique: Word Play

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Author Close Reading

Heather Sellers delves into a close reading of Lynn Emanuel’s “My Life.”

Author Tips for Success

Heather Sellers explores the ins and outs of the ghazal form.

author photo

Heather Sellers

Heather Sellers, Professor of English at the University of South Florida, received university teaching awards from USF (2022, 2017) and Hope College (2011) and is the author of the popular textbook The Practice of Creative Writing, while her memoir, You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know, has been featured in O, the Oprah Magazine, and was an O Book Of The Month pick.

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