A review ...

Of A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry.  By Gregory Orr.  From The WaPo:

Poems are “turbulently alive with the disorder that plagues or exalts us,” and when we order our words, we create an expressive but stable structure.  

Orr, who has published a dozen books of poems and has taught for more than 40 years at the University of Virginia, guides readers through classic poems and writing exercises he has used with his own students. The implication is clear: Anyone can learn to understand poetry because the impulse to engage with it has been passed down through generations. 

But Orr addresses the experienced writer, too. As the book progresses, he explains the necessity of writing to the “threshold” where disorder and order meet, intensifying the sense of being alive and placing lyric poetry under the pressure of telling a story. He also shows how writers can use various poetic tools and determine where their poems begin and end as part of the revision process.