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How to Think Like a Poet
How To Think (Related to this series)
- Author
- Dai George
- Narrator
- Ben Onwukwe
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 29 August 2024
- Run Time
- 12 hours 43 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
An entertaining guide to history's most influential and inspiring poets – from Homer and Sappho to Shakespeare and Frank O'Hara – and how they can teach us to better understand the world around us.
How did the greatest poets in history make the world anew? And what can we learn from the magic, wisdom and humour of their poetry? From the genius of the Ancient Greeks through to the love poetry and metaphysics of the Renaissance, through to the New York poets of the 20th century, this is the ultimate guide to the greatest writers of the human age.
Through short, biographical portraits, poet and writer Dai George provides an entertaining introduction to the great works of poetry, and a welcoming guide to how we can read them. He addresses questions poets have grappled with: How can we truly describe the world? How can we express love, grief or friendship? How can poetry help us to understand justice, dreams or anger?
This book paints vivid pictures of a global selection of renowned poets throughout history: from Sappho, Li Bai and Rumi, to William Shakespeare and John Donne, to Frank O Hara, Pablo Neruda and Sylvia Plath. George also seeks to re-examine the canon, traditionally dominated by Western, white and male poets, and bring to light major figures from other important cultures and communities, including China, India and the Caribbean.
Critics Review
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An entertaining guide to the rhyme and reason of poetry… capacious and curious. George has an admirable ability to get to the heart of things in just a few lines. Dai George distils a lifetime’s poetic thinking and reading into this warm, accessible book.
The Idler
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This is a wonderfully lucid and compelling account of how poetry works and why it matters. In 24 exhilarating chapters, George guides us from Homer’s Iliad to the Instapoetry of today. A triumph in both concept and execution, How to Think Like a Poet fizzes almost audibly with intellectual energy and excitement.
Mark Ford, Professor of English Literature, University College London
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With an infectious delight in his material, Dai George is a sure and skilful guide through some of poetry’s most significant waters, opening our eyes to its everyday wonders. Thanks to its consciously global canvas, How to Think Like a Poet does something rather different to your usual poetic history or handbook, opening up fresh connections and avenues of thought across its chapters. George's agile, luminous, refreshing readings of individual poets down the centuries reveal just how much they have to offer us today.
Sarah Howe, British poet and lecturer in poetry at King’s College, London
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Poetry haters will fall in love with poetry and the poetry lover will walk away refreshed after reading just a few pages of this authoritative, wide-ranging and witty book that is persistently fascinating and always an easy read!
Daljit Nagra, British poet and author of Indiom
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Dai George
- Narrator
- Ben Onwukwe
- Duration
- 12 hours 43 minutes
- Release Date
- 29 August 2024
- ISBN
- 9781399408271
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- Literary studies: poetry and poets, Self-help, personal development and practical advice, Collected biographies
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents… How to Think Like a Poet: The Poets That Made Our World and Why We Need Them by Dai George, read by Ben OnwukweAn entertaining guide to history's most influential and inspiring poets – from Homer and Sappho to Shakespeare and Frank O'Hara – and how they can teach us to better understand the world around us.How did the greatest poets in history make the world anew? And what can we learn from the magic, wisdom and humour of their poetry? From the genius of the Ancient Greeks through to the love poetry and metaphysics of the Renaissance, through to the New York poets of the 20th century, this is the ultimate guide to the greatest writers of the human age.Through short, biographical portraits, poet and writer Dai George provides an entertaining introduction to the great works of poetry, and a welcoming guide to how we can read them. He addresses questions poets have grappled with: How can we truly describe the world? How can we express love, grief or friendship? How can poetry help us to understand justice, dreams or anger?This book paints vivid pictures of a global selection of renowned poets throughout history: from Sappho, Li Bai and Rumi, to William Shakespeare and John Donne, to Frank O Hara, Pablo Neruda and Sylvia Plath. George also seeks to re-examine the canon, traditionally dominated by Western, white and male poets, and bring to light major figures from other important cultures and communities, including China, India and the Caribbean.
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