Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words

By Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge

Book Overview

An "optimistic, warm, unpretentious" (San Francisco Chronicle) guide to unlocking your inner poet, blending thoughtful anecdotes and practical exercises to foster inspiration and promote creativity

"This is a wonderful book--smart, wide-eyed, joyful, helpful, inspiring. You're going to love it, and love writing poetry more for having read it."--Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird

It's impossible to teach anyone to write a poem. But we can set up circumstances in which poems are likely to happen. We can create a field in and around us that's fertile territory for poems. Playing with words, we can get to the place where poems come from. We can write and make discoveries about who we are and who we might become whether or not we truly commit ourselves to becoming poets.

Poemcrazy is an invaluable resource for everyone who ever wanted to write a poem but was afraid to try. Writing workshop leader Susan Wooldridge shows you how to think, use your senses, and create habits that will help inspire poetic expression. She urges you to ignore the pressure of completing a poem; instead, she focuses on building inspiration through writing exercises that encourage mindfulness, imagination, and observation.

Amidst a fast-paced world, Poemcrazy invites you to slow down, reflect, and make the intentional choice to allow creativity in.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609800981
• ISBN13: 9780609800980
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

This Book Soothed My Spirit!

Reading this book was soothing to my spirit, calming, a balm. I like Wooldridge's writing style very much; I would describe it as gentle, casual and very clear. I love how she consistently makes references to the outdoors, nature and the pastoral way of living throughout. Within its pages you will become acquainted with such things as: wordpools, word tickets and the image angel. The book is divided into 5 sections; each section averages right around 10 to 12 chapters. All the chapters are either short or very short. I found that very refreshing, like sips of cool water. Take a small drink, stop and think. Take another sip... At the end of most chapters there is a "Practice" which is nothing more than a simple non-threatening creative exercise or suggestion; they are genuinely good ideas in my opinion, practical and clear. I think that the overall message from the author is that poetry is freedom when all the restrictions are removed and when you allow yourself to look for poems everywhere, because that's where they are, everywhere. I recommend this book without any reservations.

Dress Yourself With Rain

Easy and fun to read, not only for beginners. You'll read little short poems and thoughts in here that will make you think, and sometimes laugh, and will always inspire you to write. It has actually cheered me up in many ways, esp. unblock my writer's block when i have it. I sometimes just open to any page and there's the exact words, talking to only me. That's the sign of a great book. Here's another special thing about this book; it's not just for poets. I'm interested in screenplays and 'poemcrazy' has helped my writing's quality and quanity.

Poemcrazy: The Best Book I've Ever Read!

A friend of mine picked up this book when we were in a book store, knowing that I had come to an almost sudden halt in my poetry writing for the past year or so after having been a poet for four or five years. I was pretty depressed about my writer's block, so I thought, "What the heck," and I bought the book. Not long into the book, which is magnificently written, I began to write again. I haven't stopped since, and my poetry has made massive improvement. The book helps to inspire and recreate that passion that writers can sometimes lose in the midst of the stresses of our days and our constant state of change and growth. --And best of all, it's fun, easy reading!

Reading this is like striking oil

I was one of five people who started a weekly writing group last year. At first we languished a bit, trying to find a way to get ourselves going. Then one week I brought in my little stash of word tickets I had made after reading Poemcrazy. It was as though a sudden rain had made the desert bloom. We have been pouring out poems and stories and vignettes at a rare clip ever since. One of the most important things about the techniques the author presents is that they force one away from contemplating one's own belly-button, so to speak, and bring one's attention to the limitless possibilities for poetry that spring forth when chance words and phrases put the imagination in overdrive. Too often writers of my generation think that poetry has to be about our deepest and most dramatic emotions, which often leads to some pretty deadly stuff being committed to paper. But when you pull out word tickets that say things like "fronds" and "slashed" and "cutting up the remnants," it's hard to be self-absorbed. In fact, it's hard to be anything but deeply original.Everyone I have introduced to the author's exercises and methods has fallen in love with them. Even my six-year-old nephew became enamored and proceeded to rename everything and everyone in his environment--a procedure that created some hilarious yet apposite new names. (I am now "Needs to sing," his sister is "Pistachio," his grandmother is "Finding secrets....")I adore this book.