Finger Exercises for Poets by Dorianne Laux

From “a poet of immense insight and masterful craft” (Kwame Dawes), Finger Exercises for Poets is an engaging and inspiriting invitation to practice poetry alongside one of its masters. With wide-ranging examples from classic and contemporary poets, Dorianne Laux demystifies the magic of language that makes great poetry and offers generative exercises to harness that magic. She explores the syllable and the line, the use of form, poetic responses to contemporary events and personal experiences, the imaginative leap, and the power of a distinct voice. As she writes in the introduction, “My instrument is the immensity of language.… There are eighty-eight keys on a piano, six hundred thousand words in the English language. The patterns, sequences, and permutations of both are endless. For me, language is another kind of music.… I practice poetry. This book invites you to practice along with me.”

Throughout, Laux reminds us that poetry is a practice as much as an art and that poets must hone their language as a musician practicing an instrument.