Wingbeats: Exercises and Practice in Poetry

Scott Wiggerman (Editor)

Feb 2012 · eBookIt.com

About this ebook

Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry is an exciting collection from poets who teach both in and outside academia. Fifty-eight poets in various stages of their careers have contributed sixty-one exercises ranging from quick and simple to involved and multi-layered. In seven chapters, ranging from "Springboards to Imagination" to "Chancing the Accidental" to "Complicating the Poem," each exercise includes not only clear step-by-step instructions, but numerous poems that exemplify the successful completion of the exercise. Wingbeats, edited by Scott Wiggerman and David Meischen, includes exercises for working in pairs and/or groups, for incorporating research and/or the Internet, for writing outdoors, for creating a hands-on experience. Of course, traditional poetic techniques covering metaphor, persona, forms, and revision are also included. Wingbeats is destined to become a standard instructional book in every poet's library.
Contributors: Rosa Alcala, Wendy Barker, Ellen Bass, Tara Betts, Catherine Bowman, Susan Briante, Sharon Bridgforth, Nathan Brown, Jenny Browne, Andrea Hollander Budy, Lisa D. Chavez, Alison T. Cimino, Cathryn Cofell, Sarah Cortez, Bruce Covey, Oliver de la Paz, Lori Desrosiers, Cyra S. Dumitru, Blas Falconer, Annie Finch, Gretchen Fletcher, Madelyn Garner, Barbara Hamby, Carol Hamilton, Penny Harter, Kurt Heinzelman, Jane Hilberry, Karla Huston, David Kirby, Laurie Kutchins, Ellaraine Lockie, Ed Madden, Anne McCrady, Robert McDowell, Ray McManus, David Meischen, Harryette Mullen, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Hoa Nguyen, Naomi Shihab Nye, Katherine Durham Oldmixon, Kathleen Peirce, Georgia A. Popoff, Patty Seyburn, Ravi Shankar, Shoshauna Shy, Patricia Smith, Jessamyn Johnston Smyth, Bruce Snider, Lisa Russ Spaar, Susan Terris, Lewis Turco, Andrea L. Watson, Afaa Michael Weaver, William Wenthe, Scott Wiggerman, Abe Louise Young, Matthew Zapruder

About the author

Scott Wiggerman is the author of two books of poetry, Scott Wiggerman is the author of two books of poetry, Presence (Pecan Grove Press, 2011) and Vegetables and Other Relationships (Plain View Press, 2000). Recent publications with poems by Wiggerman include Switched-on Gutenberg, BorderSenses, Poemeleon, Broad River Review, Boxcar Poetry Review, and Southwestern American Literature. Wiggerman has edited several anthologies and books, including Big Land, Big Sky, Big Hair. A frequent workshop instructor, he is lead editor of Dos Gatos Press, publisher of the annual Texas Poetry Calendar, now in its fifteenth year. David Meischen has been writing poetry and teaching the writing of poetry for twenty-five years. He was the Master Teacher in English for UTeach-Liberal Arts, the teacher preparation program in the College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas, Austin, 2002-2006. He has had poems in The Southern Review, Southern Poetry Review, Borderlands, Cider Press Review, and other journals, as well as Two Southwests (Virtual Artists Collective, 2008), which features poets from the southwest of China and the United States. Meischen is a co-founder and Managing Editor of Dos Gatos Press.