The Craft is an indispensable guide to both the 'how' and 'why' of poetic craft in the 21st century, and essential writing-desk companion for poets at all stages.

The book covers practical techniques - the nuts of bolts of putting poems together, mastering poetic forms such as sonnets, sestinas, prose poems and golden shovels, how to choose titles for your poems and the art of long sequences. It also explores the idea of 'craft' itself - knowing how pentameters dance is important, but by no way is it the only dimension of 'craft' that the poet starting out today has to consider. What about sound and the skills involved in performing your work? What about truth and fabrication, and the ethics of using real life in your work? What about the politics of the word 'craft' itself?

With essays on poetry from Moniza Alvi, Dean Atta, Liz Berry, Caroline Bird, Malika Booker, Debjani Chatterjee, Jane Commane, Rishi Dastidar, Carrie Etter, Will Harris, Tania Hershman, Peter Kahn, Gregory Leadbetter, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Roy McFarlane, Harry Man, Claire Pollard, Peter Raynard, Roger Robinson, Jacqueline Saphra, Joelle Taylor, Marvin Thompson, Julia Webb, and Antosh Wojcik.

About the Author
Rishi Dastidar's poetry has been published by the Financial Times and BBC amongst many others. He is a fellow of The Complete Works, and a consulting editor at The Rialto magazine. A poem from his debut collection Ticker-tape was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2018, and his second collection, Saffron Jack, was published in the UK by Nine Arches Press in 2020. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika's Poetry Kitchen (Corsair).


Book Information
ISBN 9781911027850
Author Rishi Dastidar
Format Paperback
Imprint Nine Arches Press
Publisher Nine Arches Press