These resources offer perspectives on reading and writing poetry — what poets  accomplishes, how poems work, and why we need poetry.

ACCESSIBILITY & AUDIENCE:
Who does poetry reach?

• "How to Read a Poem: A Primer for the Uninitiated" by Edward Hirsch
• "I am almost entirely locked out of contemporary American poetry," an interview with John Lee Clark
• “Poet Wants You to Rethink About What It Means to Be Nonspeaking” by  Katelyn Harrop and Charity Nebbe
• “The poetry of everyday speech,” a TED Talk by Juliana Delgado Lopera
• “Sounding Out Poetry” by Emily K. Michael
• “Tactile Art: A DeafBlind poet on art he can touch” by John Lee Clark
• "The transformative power of classical music," a TED Talk by Benjamin Zander

CRAFT & TECHNIQUE:
How is poetry made?

• “The art of the metaphor” by Jane Hirshfield
• “Become a slam poet in five easy steps” by Gayle Danley
• “The Choice of Constraint” by Rebecca Hazelton
• “Freedom in Poetry” by Robert Pinsky
• “Give a Common Word the Spell” by Edward Hirsch
• “How to Make a Poem” by CM Burroughs
• “The Image List” by Michael McGriff
• “Learning Image and Description” by Rachel Richardson
• “Learning the Poetic Line” by Rebecca Hazelton
• “Poetry: Foundation for Creative Writing: Part 1. The Power of Words” by Justin Hibbard
• “The Pursuit of Form” by Robert Pinsky
• “The Seven Gifts: What Poetry Offers Prose Writers” by Emily K. Michael
• “Teaching By Ear” by Stephen Kuusisto
• "What do iambic pentameter in English, the alexandrine in French, and the haiku in Japanese all have in common?" by Gretchen McCulloch
• "Words That Shimmer," an On Being interview with Elizabeth Alexander
• "Your elusive creative genius," a TED Talk by Elizabeth GIlbert

PERFORMANCE & VOCATION:
What does poetry do?

• "12 truths I learned form life and writing," a TED Talk by Anne Lamott
• "Crediting Poetry: 1995 Nobel Lecture" by Seamus Heaney
• “A Conversation With Verse,” an On Being interview with Paul Muldoon
• "The Conversational Nature of Reality," an On Being interview with David Whyte
• "Crip Poetry, Or How I Learned to Love the Limp" by Jim Ferris
• “The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi,” an On Being interview with Fatemeh Keshavarz
• "The Inner Landscape of Beauty," an On Being interview with John O'Donohue
• "A lyrical bridge between past, present, and future," a TED Talk by David Whyte
• “Make Good Art” by Neil Gaiman
• “Poetry: Why it is important,” a TEDx Talk by Scott Griffin
• "The Power of Words to Save Us," an On Being interview with Marie Howe
• "Someone Is Writing a Poem" by Adrienne Rich
• "Spiritual Poetry" by Jane Hirshfield
• "The Trouble with I" by Daniel Simpson
• "A Wild Love for the World," an On Being interview with Joanna Macy
• “Writing as an antidote to loneliness” by Jeremy Nobel

• “Your Life is a Poem,” an On Being interview with Naomi Shihab Nye

Resource list compiled by Emily K. Michael. Last updated on Jul 11, 2020.