Rach's Reading Club

After my first March book, I decided that my second one should be straight off the list. So, I picked "The Ode Less Taken" by Stephen Fry and, boy, am I glad that I did.

This is a book about writing poetry by an author who, I believe, is best known as a comedian in The U.K. It is the most thorough, illuminating, and entertaining book on that subject which I have ever seen.

Fry takes us through some poetic terms which you most likely learned in school. (iamb, trochee, spondee etc.) but he goes further and discusses some of the more esoteric things your twelfth grade English teacher might not have had time for. He includes some forms which are never used sometime because he thinks that the reader might like to try the. He also includes a few that he thinks the reader will never use, "because I care about your soul" He provides examples both from his own poetry and others. It leads the reader into a better understanding of the English language, the difference between American English and British English, as well as the difference between English and other languages like French and Spanish.

He also defends old fashioned poetic devices like rhyme and meter in terms that make wish I could go back in time and show this book to some of my English teachers who were big advocates for Free verse. My old High School teacher encouraged students to write Free verse because rhyme and meter were too limiting. On the other hand, I had a college professor who said said he secretly believed that Free verse was not true poetry.

Fry says that he actually likes Free Verse, but that it's actually very difficult to write, at least to write it well. He also argues that the constraints of rhyme and meter can actually be what inspires creativity.

What else can I say about this book? Oh Yeah. Read it in private, because the samples of meter beg to be read out loud, so if you bring this book w3ith you to read on a train or bus, people will be staring at you.

Read this book, if you have any interest whatsoever in poetry.