Advanced Poetry

A text for practised poets, this book offers a springboard beyond the basics into more daring poetic traditions, experimentation and methods. It lays out the myriad conversations influencing contemporary poetics, paying attention to its roots in historical and theoretical thinking. With a focus on innovation and breaking established boundaries, Advanced Poetry introduces you to the poetics shaping the contemporary literary moment, first guiding you through the contexts and principles of these forms using a range of practical examples, before prompting you to pick up the pen yourself.

Spanning decades and continents, and covering the rich field of poets writing today, this book shows how to read, explicate, and write poetry and includes discussion of:

• Received traditions and innovative forms
• Confessional and epistolary poetry
• Aesthetic experimentation with voice
• Methods and theories developed by early Surrealists
• Deep image and the poetics of spells
• Ecopoetics & poetry of place
• Writing the body based on queer theory and disability studies
• Docupoetics and lyric research
• Racial imaginaries and poetics of liberation
• Digital poetics
• Writing in community with other poets and collaborative, interdisciplinary projects
• Revision processes and putting together a collection or chapbook
• Advice on writing artist statements and other professional materials

Bringing together a comprehensive craft guide with a carefully collated anthology showcasing the (existing) limits of what is possible in poetry, this text explores how poetry since the 20th century has embraced traditional structures, borrowed from other disciplines, and invented wildly new forms. With close readings, writing prompts, excerpts of interviews from key figures in the field and a supplementary companion website, this is the definitive text for any poet looking to continue their poetic journey.