Poemcrazy

the long version

In Poemcrazy, Susan Wooldridge invites us into a realm where poetry is accessible, where poems are moments of discovery that often arrive unexpectedly - in parking lots, at the grocery store, on walks - and make our ordinary lives extraordinary. A poet/teacher in the California Poets in the Schools program, Susan starts us off playing with language. First, she shows how to create "wordpools," helping us see we're all immersed in an ocean of words we use but largely ignore. We learn to create images, begin to develop metaphor, and gradually move into "dream-sense" where we can explore who we are in poems that carry us to deeper levels within. Susan helps us find our own poems by sharing the stories of how she and others discover theirs. Through delightful and often amusing vignettes of her own life and experience as a writer, Susan shows some of the possibilities words and images create. In practice sessions throughout the book, Susan loosens us up with language and demonstrates how to craft poems using a poet's tools such as journal writing, imagery, comparison, exaggeration, awareness of detail, and playful juxtaposition. For fifteen years, Susan has held workshops with adults and children, including teachers in training and adults in recovery. She's learned that in a safe, free setting, surrounded by words, anyone can write poems - often very good ones. Urged on by Susan's contagious enthusiasm, her love of her craft, her generosity of spirit, we too can enter the realm where language becomes magical and write poems that express more than words can say.