Singing School: Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry by Studying with the Masters

Singing School: Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry by Studying with the Masters

by Robert Pinsky. New York: Norton, 2013. 221 pp.

When he served as poet laureate, Robert Pinsky created The Favorite Poem Project: Americans Saying Poems They Love. Ordinary people- cabdr ive r s and lawyer s and housewives-read their favorite poems and explained, in their own words, what the poems mean to them. For example, a fifth-grade student read "The Sloth" by Theodore Roethke and explained its importance to her. These explanations reveal the strength of poetry, its power to express real emotion in the lives of regular people, not just teachers and critics. Singing School: Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry by Studying with the Masters seems to be an extension of this project. Pinsky's openness to new voices, new perspectives, is central to the structure of the book. The brief headnotes at the beginning of each poem are the most interesting things in this book for creative writing teachers because they reinforce Pinsky's overall approach to literacy instruction within the context of creative writing: learning to write poems begins with reading poems, and finding your own inspiration requires minimal direct...