Teachers & Writers Collaborative

There are quite a few creative writing manuals on the market, but there is nothing remotely like The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet, a compendium of 104 poetry-writing methods that have excited and challenged students and writers for the past two decades. Among the exercises are poetry mobiles, poetry robots, postage stamp poems, rolodex poems, shadow poems, chopstick quatrains, and other inventive exercises.
“Teachers and parents will treasure this collection.”—School Enrichment Model Network News

ISBN 0-915924-44-7

The second edition of this best-selling handbook includes 76 entries on traditional and modern poetic forms, an updated bibliography, and a resource list of current audio and videocassettes. The Handbook succinctly defines the forms, summarizes their histories, quotes good examples (ancient and modern), and offers professional tricks of the trade on how to use each form.
“This colorful, graphically pleasing, and entertaining reference work is what can happen when those who actually practice and preach poetry present their knowledge.”—Teaching English in the Two-Year College

ISBN 0-915924-60-9

This classic guide by the trailblazer of poetry teaching offers ideas and techniques that are useful at all age levels. Kenneth Koch has taken his “thoughtful, giving, resourceful, and patient spirit to quite elderly and often infirm men and women… A poignant and dramatic victory.”—New York Times Book Review

ISBN 0-915924-53-6

The list poem is one of the simplest ways for beginners to approach the writing of free-verse poetry. Larry Fagin’s seminal guide defines list poetry, traces its lineage from ancient times, offers writing ideas and teaching advice for list poems, and presents more than 200 examples by adults and children.
“For anyone who would like to explore a poetic form that is so flexible it can be used by the beginning poet as well as the most sophisticated.”—Wisconsin Bookwatch

ISBN 0-915924-37-4

In Listener in the Snow, Mark Statman presents practical ideas and assignments to help students reach beyond what they’ve already been doing. His method involves what might be called the art of wondering. The assignments encourage students to think creatively about time, family, silence, loss, society, travel, and the nature of dreams. “Statman’s artful and wise essays guide those who choose the path of practicing poetry.”—Vanity Fair.

ISBN 0-915924-59-5

How do you assess such a personal art as poetry? Basing his discussion on the best poems he has collected from his students over the years, Jack Collom provides a poet’s view of what makes them good. Collom’s approach is friendly, specific, perceptive, and delightful, affording the reader the opportunity to understand the nature of creative evaluation.

ISBN 0-915924-55-2

Dave Morice’s Poetry Comics offers literary mavens and students alike a look at the canon in a new and hilarious light. This anthology brings together such classics as Shakespeare’s sonnets, Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” and Emily Dickinson’s “Poem 303” with renditions of such modern masterpieces as John Ashbery’s “Some Trees,” T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” and Marianne Moore’s “Poetry.”

In addition to Morice’s kaleidoscope of cartoons, the book features a brief history of poetry comics as well as a step-by-step guide to making poetry comics at home or in the classroom.
“Tweaks the nose of poetry.”—Village Voice
“Will surely irk the hell out of professors and self-serious grad students everywhere.”—Boston Globe

Dave Morice’s Poetry Comics Postcards is the English 101 of postcard books. Each of the 25 postcards takes a laughing look at a masterpiece from the English canon including such classics as Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130,” Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” Emily Dickinson’s “Poem 288,” T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men,” and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Send them to fellow teachers and writers or keep them for your own delight.

Poet Robert Creeley has called Morice’s illustrated classics “the best buy in the universe.”
“Morice’s work arrives with that quality of inevitability that attends any bright-as-a-lightbulb idea whose time has come.”—Washington Post

The dazzling new edition of this “tremendously valuable resource” (Kliatt) contains 65 writing exercises and more than 400 example poems. It also discusses how to integrate poetry writing into the English class and essential topics such as sound and rhythm, traditional poetic forms, inventing and adapting exercises, revision, and publishing.
“The lessons are presented with clarity, common sense, and sophisticated artistic sensibilities.”—Missoula Independent
”Poetry Everywhere will ease any trepidation [about writing poetry].”—English Journal

ISBN 0-915924-69-2

Structure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns offers a road map for analyzing poetry through examination of poems’ structures, rather than their forms or genres. Michael Theune’s breakthrough concept encourages students, teachers, and writers to use structure as a tool to see the fundamental affinities between strikingly different kinds of poetry and radically different literary eras.
“A smart collection of takes on poetry’s most essential maneuvers.”
—Billy Collins
“Michael Theune has come up with an ingenious way of thinking about poetry.”
—Ed Hirsch

ISBN 978-0-915924-27-1

Over a four-year period, Daniel Kane interviewed many of America’s most interesting and daring contemporary poets about their work. What Is Poetry features twelve of the liveliest of these dialogues, accompanied by an in-depth introduction to the American “avant-garde tradition,” a series of personable biographies, and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

The poets interviewed are Rae Armantrout, John Ashbery, Robert Creeley, Fanny Howe, Lisa Jarnot, Kenneth Koch, Ann Lauterbach, Bernadette Mayer, Harryette Mullen, Michael Palmer, Lewis Warsh, and Marjorie Welish.
“The poets…open up about their individual approaches to poetry and about teaching creative writing in a way that many aspiring poets, writing instructors, and even lay readers will find revealing and inspiring.” —Library Journal
“If you are a reader of any kind of poetry, you should get this book.” —Teacher, Rhinebeck, NY

ISBN 0-915924-64-1

The Writing Book is T&W’s first writing workbook designed specifically for students in grades 3-6. Inky Penguin leads students through 12 basic writing exercises, including remembering, inventing, freewriting, describing, and revising. The Writing Book focuses predominantly on poetry, but also features general writing exercises, a section on making books, an in-depth glossary, and a bibliography.
“A good book for encouraging creative writing.”—Home Education

ISBN 0-915924-66-8

El Libro de la Escritura is one of the only creative writing workbooks in Spanish for children. More than simply a Spanish translation of The Writing Book (described above), it contains four additional writing ideas (traducción, mi nombre, español/inglés es como, and diccionario de la imaginación), a new bibliography of Spanish poetry for children, and many fresh examples in Spanish.

ISBN 0-915924-65-X

ISBN 0-915924-70-6