This is an amazing book! Opening it for teaching ideas (which are abundant and enticing), I find myself reading for pure pleasure, as I would in a rich anthology -- dipping in and out of the book and finding, on every page, something compelling, delightful, and relevant. Different from most creative writing texts, even the authors' exposition is engaging, like a good conversation with trusted teachers who know their students well: know their interests and frames of reference, their misunderstandings and apprehensions about writing, and their needs for a wide range of choices of writing activities. I've been writing and publishing for years, but I'm getting many new ideas for myself, including different ways to keep a journal and kinds of poems I'd never thought about writing. I can hardly wait to share this book with my students.

This book is very useful for student writer groups! I had worn out the exercises in THE CRAFT OF POETRY; this book has maybe a couple of hundred exercises, some in a special section and some at the end of each chapter. The exercises are fun and productive, mostly easier than those in THE CRAFT OF POETRY, and they are in several genres. I am glad I found this.

AS the editor of this book, I'd like readers to know that it not only includes major essays by leading American critics like Helen Vendler, Robert Pinsky, and David Lehman, but that it also contains previously uncollected material by Bishop herself, work not available in any other book. This was a landmark book on Bishop and remains the most thorough collection of material on her work: critical essays, reviews, and even poetry about her (by James Merrill and Robert Lowell).