About book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within (2006)
This is an admirably unpretentious introduction to the formal art of poesy. Before picking up this book I had no idea that Stephen Fry (who is quite possibly the most affable tv persona in the history of the bright tube) wrote or even was an aficionado of the art form. What was even more surprising was to find out how rich and varied his knowledge on the subject is, and how well and clear he writes, and the subtlety he employs while making a fairly contentious argument.I love poetry but I stay away from bickering with most people who either read or write it because most of the time I find such colloquies tiresome. I also find the great bulk of contemporary poetry tiresome and lazy, and quite often empty and solipsistic, devoid of genius. Apparently, Stephen Fry agrees with me, and in different parts of his book makes healthy stabs at encouraging people to return to a very serious study of formal poetry—not because he wants people to write strictly in old, traditional forms, but because of the significant oomph such practice gives to one’s ability to write poetry at all! It’s an argument that I’ve been making for years, and one that has basically fallen on deaf ears.A lot more people write poetry today than ever before. That is certainly a good thing. But poets like Bukowski and other Beat poets have dissipated the structures to such a degree that one can easily imitate a bare-bones piece of free verse and then get hooked without ever knowing what they’re missing out on by not making a careful study of formal poetry. When you stop to think about it, it’s really quite insane: to proceed as a poet without first mastering the art form. But almost every poet I’ve met has given me the conservative, you’re-an-old-fuddy-duddy look when I point this obvious fact out. One of the hugely valuable things about Fry’s book is that he shows, in very concise and entertaining prose, why free verse, unhinged from an intimate awareness of the history out of which modern poetry sprang, tends to become unfocused, sterile, abstract, and less vital. I completely agree. Few things during my short life have touched me as powerfully as poetry has, but almost all of those powerful experiences have been while reading the works of long-dead poets. I used to live near a popular poetry store and would occasionally go in and comb through the books of new poets, and then almost always put the books back with a really terrible feeling of apathy and disappointment. Why are there no Shakespeares or Miltons today? We can point to very straight forward sociological issues regarding consumerist culture, etc. and how we’re basically becoming brain dead from our starchy meals, x-boxes, and the life-sucking ubiquity of Facebook. But the problem is even bigger and more complicated than these reductions would have us suppose, which is why artists should take their crafts a little more seriously and look inwardly for an excellence that will once again make future generations look back with awe and not just see a vast pastiche of viciously make-upped celebrities fading away in a blur of reality television. In the meantime, Fry’s book is a wonderful place for poets or anyone who is interested in poetry to start the re-evaluative process. The book covers all the basics, including various meters, foots, and forms, and Fry even offers his own sample verses, most of which are cleverly designed explanatory pieces meant to convey a form’s basic distinctive features, while also offering a baseline example for the reader to follow. He also discusses different forms using a scattered collection of notorious, apt, and heavily anthologized pieces from a slew of important poets, often launching into very interesting discussions on why these selections are either successful, deviant, or hopelessly flawed, and his judgement, in most cases, is spot on. My one criticism would be his lack of discussion about the nature of poetry itself and how it differs from other modes of written expression. He does mention at the end a few things about the ‘whatness’ of poetry, but it’s a little too late in the book. The imagination is supreme in poetry; a poet has to see things and has to trust his/her imagination. That is the real discipline. Cleverness is certainly what destroys most poetry and definitely makes up the bulk of what we’d call mediocre verse. Aphoristic or apt phrases come to us all when we speak. But stellar images caught in ingenious tropes full of prepossessing metaphorical entailment are something that requires concentration, practice, and discipline. The poet who achieves something original and honest moves beyond being simply clever and begins to see things more distinctly and strangely, and captures them in a way that spells out the little fault lines fissuring from the ghastly plenitude of the present. Some of Fry’s examples are funny, and almost all of them are clever, but because they are so he reinforces an existing, stale procedure that is possibly already too well taught in writing programs everywhere. The book is full of examples and ‘exercises.’ But he doesn’t emphasize the deluding task that Rimbaud so fondly forced upon himself: to take up the drunkenness of the senses by the twisting turns of epiphany and to see things in an utterly novel way, which is really just a form of self-trust one encourages and cultivates by giving oneself over to his imagination after enforcing a discipline that harnesses and builds an unconscious structure around the whole...
A clear, concise, entertaining, witty and often brilliant overview of poetic form, meter, history and so much more. The only thing he doesn't get into very much is content, although there is a small section for it. It's more about learning what the tools are and how you might use them. A poet who knows more of the tools is more likely to be a good poet than one who does not.I found the description of meter to be the most interesting, since I've never really delved into it that much. I'm still hardly an expert, but am far better than I was. And, to be honest, when I write poetry, I don't use meter that much. I am mostly just listening to how it sounds without considering meter. Still, I want to know about the different types, how they are used and how they sound. This book does that and more.One of my favourite books on poetry ever. I borrowed it from the library and part way through, bought a copy. I will be using it as a reference for a long time.There was one thing that I thought was a bit unusual, and probably the only missing piece. Mr. Fry discussed the various types of poems, open forms, with no fixed length and then the fixed form, with an exact number of lines. He does say that form X doesn't care much about the meter, say the vilanelle and is more about the refrain, but when he discussed sonnets, he never actually says that they must be written in iambic pentameter. Maybe he just assumed that through his previous examples that everyone would know? I'm not sure, but it's never actually mentioned in either the definition of sonnets at the back or in the sonnet section. It's a small thing, but still, it should be there.
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Great, meaty introduction to the technical aspects of poetry by the venerable Mr.Fry. The bases covered include rhyme schemes, meters, the various poetry forms, and a concluding rant about the state of poetry today. Even though this is an introduction, this is not a book that you can skim through. Fry introduces a host of technical terms that denote very real and important aspects of a poem, and he ends every chapter with an exercise that the reader is supposed to do. The tone is so conversational, friendly and the material is fascinating and well-explained. Sprinkled throughout the book are examples from poets far and wide, good and bad, who prop up the terms and concepts that the author is highlighting ; and he often prefaces the introduction of every new form with a bit of doggerel from his own pen to show us the basic outline. Overall, a very fun, informative and fascinating read.
—Arjun Ravichandran
Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (Gotham, 2005)I think every poet at some point, no matter how much they've been raised on free verse, turns his or her attention to formal verse. Thus the enduring popularity of form dictionaries (my personal favorite has always been Dacey and Jauss' Strong Measures). In The Ode Less Travelled (and points to Fry for spelling “travelled” right when my word processor's dictionary flags it as incorrect), Fry has little truck with free verse; it's all forms all the time here, and is an excellent addition to the formal-verse canon.After some general introductory chapters, Fry breaks a number of types of formal verse down and introduces us to each, with examples both from classic poets and from his own doggerel (I suspect that Fry, who is far more accomplished than he lets on here, specifically wrote doggerel for inclusion here in order to make it all look a great deal easier). While the book is by no means exhaustive—I don't think I've ever run across a truly exhaustive form dictionary—it's a fine introduction to many of the most popular and enduring forms. If you're a poet, even if you haven't discovered the lure of formal verse yet, it's well worth picking this up. You'll get there eventually. ****
—Robert Beveridge
The first few chapters are great. The author is just as entertaining, witty, and charming as you would imagine. The use of the iambic pentameter is set out clearly and concisely. This section got me writing, and made me realize I had overlooked the brilliance of Wilfred Owen. The rest I could have done without.If you like this - now, go and read an anthology of 100 best poems preferably including something rousing by Kipling.If you are made of firmer stuff, try the poetry foundation online. They also have a magazine too. Oh, and try Bloodaxe publishing.
—Raoul
