Why Write Haiku
and Other Words on Words
Content
This book is not just about the Haiku. Nor is it only about poetry. The main part of the title is taken from the first piece in the opening section (of five). The second part of the book’s title is as important as the first: and other words on words. I am, and hope you are, as interested in prose as much as poetry.
The fifth section especially focuses on what writers of note did or had to say about writing. For example, would William Golding have written Lord of the Flies if he had not previously been at sea and been a schoolmaster? Was Charles Dickens a chauvinist?
The whole is organised in five sections, as follows:
One: Six Honest Serving Men
Why Write Haiku?
Where is Grub Street?
How is Rhyme a Crime?
How are Poetry and Popular Music Related?
When Should You Review?
What is an Essay?
What is Poetry in Translation For?
Why Magic Realism?
Who were the Georgians?
What is Speculative Fiction?
When was Romance?
What is a Villanelle?
Two: Triolet
Ballad
Ballade
Blank Verse
Chant Royal
Englynion
Metre
Nonsense Verse
Ottava Rima
Pantoum
Rhyme Royal
Roundel
A Sample Poem Analysed
Sestina
Sonnet
Tanka
Terza Rima
Triolet (Form)
Vers Libre
Three: Literary Terms
Terms used in prose and poetry from
Accentual Verse to Zeitgeist.
Words on Words
The derivation, sound, forgotten
meaning etc of selected words.
Living Words
Essays on Literary Biography
True to Life
Turning Points
A Sense of Place
Working Writers
Mr & Mrs
Writers at War
The Writing Habit
Family Matters
Writers at Sea
Putting Their Towns on the Map
Under the Influence
Another Kind of Influence
Writers on Writing
Writers in Love
Another Look at Existentialism
A Writer’s Christmas
