I'm fairly new to poetry, I usually spend my time writing short stories. That said, I absolutely love poetry and lately I have been attempting to write some myself, however, I am finding it to be an extremely hard aspect of writing. I'm currently reading "A Poetry Handbook" by Mary Oliver and was wanting to know of any other useful books dealing with the making of poetry.
you'd be better off studying the works of the best poets, than reading how-tos... i'm a full time, published-here-and-there poet and i mentor many aspiring poets, but i never had to read a how-to on the subject, since i've been reading good poetry since earliest childhood [that = almost 7 decades!]...
It's not a how-to guide, but Paul Hyland's Getting into Poetry: A Readers' & Writers' Guide to the Poetry Scene is the best thing I've read on what contemporary poetry is all about (although some of the advice on getting published is out of date). Peter Sansom's Writing Poems is closer to a how-to, but not as close as its title suggests. A lot of it is about things to look for when reading poems, because as Mamma says good reading is the key to good writing. Both are fairly cheap and quite slim, and I think they would be helpful to anybody who doesn't have seven decades to spend on acquiring the skills
Also not a how-to, and the best book on writing I've ever read, full-stop: "The Triggering Town", by poet Richard Hugo. Funny, humane. With wonderful examples and plenty of food for thought.
