A review by mbayne
What Is Poetry?: The Essential Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Michael Rosen

5.0

I was a creative writing major. I've read a lot of books and articles about poetry (although I'm more of the fiction writer), and this is definitely the best one out of the lot. While it's target audience is probably upper elementary through middle school kids, I think it can definitely scale into high school, and even be useful and inspiring to adults like me. Reading Michael Rosen's guide to poetry makes me realize how many of the previous poetry resources were definitely written by academics and not poets themselves. Rosen works through this guide to poetry differently, from the first chapter where he be explores what is poetry by exploring what poetry can do, complete with examples... and it puts all the technical terminology of poetry (metaphor, rhythm, etc.) in the last chapter, an afterthought to the bigger scope of poetry as a thing that places with words and emotions and images.

This is definitely welcoming guide to poetry I've ever read, and it should become a standard in classrooms.