Chapter One Books

On Becoming a Poet: Twenty-five Original Essays and Interviews (Anthology)

On Becoming a Poet features short, original memoirs by outstanding poets from diverse backgrounds who recall the various ways they found their start as writers. While university creative writing programs generally seek to develop the talents of maturing writers, essential information about the development of the craft can be discovered in these early memoirs—the Chapter Ones—answering vital questions such as: How does one become a poet? What is creativity? Where does poetry come from? This anthology collects 25 original memoirs of beginnings, including essays and interviews, all making their first appearance in print.

Creativity: Where Poems Begin by Mary Mackey

What is creativity? Where do writers get their ideas? In this brilliantly written, profound, deeply personal examination of how creative ideas have come to her, award-winning poet and New York Times best-selling novelist Mary Mackey looks at the origins of inspiration, taking us to on a journey to the place where poetry begins. “Her quest makes Creativity a book for anyone who wants to understand how bursts of insight come not only to poets and writers but to all of us.” —Mara Lynn Keller, PhD, Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Religion and Women’s Studies, California

Plan B: A Poet’s Survivors Manual, by Sandy McIntosh

In PLAN B: A POET’S SURVIVORS MANUAL, McIntosh offers the answer: you need a Plan B if you want to put food on the table, wear shoes without holes in the soles, and stop living with roommates before you turn sixty. Taking us on a witty, fascinating, no-holds barred romp through his own experiences in the world of commercial writing and publishing, McIntosh reassures us that it is possible to have a successful career as a poet while holding down day jobs that make us better writers.  “PLAN B: is a wonderful book, an important book, a book aspiring writers of fiction and poetry should read.”  —David Lehman, Editor, The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Series Editor, The Best American Poetry

Craft: A Memoir by Tony Trigilio

An exploration of the writer’s craft through a series of short, linked personal essays. Each chapter features an anecdote from the author’s development as a writer that illustrates craft elements central to his body of work. Craft: A Memoir is an effort to understand craft through discussions of the direct experience of writing itself—through stories of how Trigilio became a writer. When we talk about “craft” as writers, we frequently focus on clinical, literary-dictionary terms such as language, narrative, structure, image, tone, and voice, among others. To be sure, this book considers such conventional craft elements—especially questions of language, narrative, and structure—but as a book focused on storytelling and memoir, it also emphasizes craft elements such as: generative strategies and revision; persona and voicing; appropriation and remixing; documentary poetics; traditional and experimental poetic forms (including the role that an expanded conception of “ekphrasis” can play for twenty-first century writers); the relationship between music composition and poetry; the role of narrative in lyric poetry; the importance of the ordinary and the mundane; the importance for poets of reading prose; and the artistic benefit of blurring the boundary between history and craft.

Where Did Poetry Come From: Some Early Encounters by Geoffrey O’Brien

Where Did Poetry Come From is a memoir in episodes of some early encounters—with the spoken word, the written word, the sung word—in childhood and adolescence, encounters that suggested different aspects of the mysterious and shapeshifting phenomenon imperfectly represented by the abstract noun “poetry.” From nursery rhymes and television theme songs, show tunes and advertising jingles, Classic Comics and Bible verses, to first meetings with the poetry of Stevenson, Poe, Coleridge, Ginsberg, and others, it tracks not final assessments but a description of the unexpected revelations that began to convey how poetry “made its presence known before it had been given a name.”