Scott Owens's Blog

• How Does Poetry Work

  October 26, 2009

  • How Does Poetry Work?   Reprinted from “Musings,” Outlook, October 8, 2009   Any attempt at answering that question is doomed to be inadequate for the simple fact that what we call poetry varies greatly and works in an incomprehensible range of ways.  Nevertheless, as Robert Frost said, “There are roughly zones,” and there is a great deal to be learned as a poet or a reader ...
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• Why Poetry

  October 26, 2009

  • Why Poetry?   Reprinted from “Musings,” Outlook, August 20, 2009               It’s a question that every poet who has ever been interviewed has been asked and a question that I ask my own writing students every semester.  But it may really be two questions.  The reasons, after all, for reading poetry can be quite different than the reasons for writing it.  And the ...
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• Top 10 Reasons to Go to a Poetry Reading

  October 26, 2009

  • Top 10 Reasons to Go to a Poetry Reading   Reprinted from “Musings,” Outlook, November 13, 2008               In this age of universal literacy, poetry readings might seem a strange concept.  Why would one give up an evening of watching The Biggest Loser or Dancing with the Stars to listen to someone read to them what they could easily read, and perhaps more easily ...
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• How to Read a Poem

  October 26, 2009

  • HOW TO READ A POEM  Reprinted from "Musings,"Outlook, August 27, 2009             This one comes in direct response to a reader who wrote to me that he doesn’t read much poetry because it never makes any sense to him.  This is not the first time I’ve heard this complaint about poetry.             The problem, I think, with understanding poetry is that ...
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