Poetry How-to Books

Lots of writers, me included, like to read how-to books. Sometimes we might even read them when we should be writing instead! But I think you can learn a lot from how-to books, and even though there aren't really any books specifically about writing poetry for kids, there are some great books available. I'm going to share (in no particular order) some of my favorites. Some of them are really written for kids, but I think beginning poets will find them entertaining and chock-full of useful info, too.

A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms (selected by Paul Janeczko): This picture book features extremely brief definitions of poetic forms from haiku to villanelle, each with a kid-accessible example. Great poems, great poets, great book.

Excerpt: Tercet: If you have a couplet and add a third line with the same end rhyme, you wind up with a tercet.

Kitchen crickets make a din,
sending taunts to chilly kin,
“You’re outside, but we got in.”

--Joan Bransfield Graham