cover image The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems

The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems

Frances Mayes. Harvest Books, $16 (512pp) ISBN 978-0-15-600762-7

Best known as the author of Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany and other memoirs of life in the Italian province, Frances Mayes until recently chaired of San Francisco State's creative writing department, and has published five books of poems. The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems is the product of all her reading and writing experiences, with chapters on ""Meter,"" ""Rhyme and Repetition,"" ""Subject and Style,"" covering all the bases with plenty of canonical exemplars. (Nov.)