Friday, August 15, 2008

Poetry Tips: Reviews

I always enjoy reading reviews of poetry and know that many of you enjoy my reviews as well. Today I challenge you all to review a book of poems you enjoy—no matter how popular or obscure—for others to learn about. It can be posted to your web-site, blog, or simply typed up and mailed to friends and family.

My formula for reviews is fairly simple: I only review that which I enjoy reading and I also try to find information about the author on the web, usually by visiting Poetry Foundation and/or Poets.org. This way you can provide some background information on the poet in addition to your review of the poems themselves. From there I usually review two or three poems and explain why I liked them and quote between two and six lines for examples depending on the length of the poem for readers to get an idea of the author’s style of writing and for the poem itself. You can do a review however you like, and if you do, I hope you will let me know via the comments section for all of us to take a look. You may just win over some new readers for your site and for the author of the collection—a win for both sides.

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by NEXT Sunday for answers to last Sunday’s Search and the next edition…(I will be out of town and unable to post, so please stop by the following Sunday, otherwise I’ll see you this Monday…)

2 comments:

Dave King said...

Quite a challenge, but why not? And yes, I'm certainly one who enjoys your reviews.

Poet Hound said...

Thank you Mr. King! Hope to see a review from you in the near future.