Fooling with Words : A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft

Rating:
Summary: Great, easy reading
Review: This is one of the better poetry books I have ever read. It's very converstional, and the interviews/discussions with the poets is really great. The poetry is really what blows me away. Insightful, interesting, yet not impossible to understand. I combination that sadly isn't found often.

Rating:
Summary: extremely accessible and non-pretentious
Review: Unlike most poetry books, this one focuses on the poet's insights into his/her own work and some very accessible poems by modern poets. Moyers refuses to get bogged down in the technique of poetry (rhyming, meter, scansion, etc...) and instead focuses on each author's comments and explications of his own work. Each chapter picks one poet and starts with his/her reading at the festival and then an informal Q and A that sheds light into how poets become poets. No surprises here -- most who write it can't think how they could NOT have written, even at an early age. In some cases, poetry literally rescued their authors from their borderline lives. For anyone interested in the creative process, this is an easy to follow and enlightening short volume on poetry and poems.

Rating:
Summary: extremely accessible and non-pretentious
Review: Unlike most poetry books, this one focuses on the poet's insights into his/her own work and some very accessible poems by modern poets. Moyers refuses to get bogged down in the technique of poetry (rhyming, meter, scansion, etc...) and instead focuses on each author's comments and explications of his own work. Each chapter picks one poet and starts with his/her reading at the festival and then an informal Q and A that sheds light into how poets become poets. No surprises here -- most who write it can't think how they could NOT have written, even at an early age. In some cases, poetry literally rescued their authors from their borderline lives. For anyone interested in the creative process, this is an easy to follow and enlightening short volume on poetry and poems.