Writing Poetry To Save Your Life: How To Find The Courage To Tell Your Stories (Personal Development) Paperback – April 30, 2013

I've been a student of Maria's, and when she released this book, I decided to try it with my own poetry writing classes. Finally--a book they can relate to and get something from. I've tried some of the major contenders--Ordinary Genius and Poemcrazy the foremost ones--in courses, and the students hated them. Writing Poetry to Save Your Life was the perfect text for starting off the semester, helping the students tap into their own stories, and realize that no matter what kind of poetry you plan to write, content is more important than form. The most perfect sonnet is still tripe if it has zero meaning to the reader. After we read and discussed this book, they began writing raw, honest, emotional poetry, tapping into material that truly resonates with a reader. The hundreds of poetry prompts listed at the end helped them to keep journaling and writing throughout the semester whenever they were stuck for inspiration.I even use the book constantly for my own writing; whenever I hit a block for topics to write on, there is always something in here that jogs my creativity. This book is like being in one of Maria's workshops or classes--she is truly inspiring and gifted as a teacher and a writer, and she doesn't feel the need to cloak poetry in the mystique and mystery that some poets seem to insist on, which can turn so many students off of reading or writing it. When I walked into her class, I planned to be a fiction writer, and I was only taking the course because it fit my schedule. By the middle of the semester, I had changed my focus entirely, started writing poems, and was getting acceptances to several international journals before a year had passed. If you take what maria says or writes to heart, you will tap into talents you never even knew you had. This book deserves to be held up in the canon of technique and how-to guides for writing poetry and should be the first book of any kind for the beginning, or even experienced, poetry writer to turn to.

I have read many books on the craft of writing poetry, and this one is the most helpful. With the heart and patience of the teacher that she is, Gillan offers practical advice for finding your voice as a poet. Most helpful to me is her suggestion that writing in form doesn't matter. The writing prompts in the back of the book are very useful, and I have written several good poems using them. I highly recommend this book

Love this book that I used as a text in a creative writing class.

Writing Poetry To Save Your Life" is the most useful how-to-write book I've ever come across. A gift. More than half the book consists of writing prompts which have actually led me to look forward eagerly to daily writing rather than experiencing daily writing as a grim but good-for-you exercise and duty. I love Ms Gillan's populist view of poetry, love that she wrote in chapter four about critics who denigrate personal poetry, "They can believe that their esoteric poems are the only ones that should be written. I say I want to hear your story." Gillan's prompts have worked super-well for me. Poems are piling up in my iPad writing file which leaves me feeling happy and creatively satisfied. If you want to write memoir but haven't yet begun, this may be just the inspiration you need. I've already bought another of Ms Gillan's books, and plan to purchase at least one other---and wish I could attend one of her workshops or classes.I've given the book four stars instead of five only because Ms Gillan doesn't discuss how to shape a "story" into the poetry form. In future editions, a couple of paragraphs about that would be helpful, but simply seeing how she's done it is probably enough. (If it were possible to rate the book 4 3/4 stars I would have).

Great read

Nothing new. I only read a part of it.

I don't leave reviews often, but this book deserves 5 stars. I was looking for something to encourage me to keep writing poetry about my own story. Maria does just that. She shares beautiful examples of poems I will be bookmarking to read again and again. I needed a friendly voice to tell that there is nothing wrong with my way of writing and the things I write about. The last half of this book contains a LARGE series of prompts. As someone who has read over many prompts in the past, I can say that the ones Maria presents us with are excellent and thought-provoking. Honestly, after going through them, I would have just bought the book of prompts (I find them that valuable), so I consider it a bonus to have all her insight in the first half of the book as well. I recommend this book to any poet trying to reach out of the box we are so often put in, so that they can be encouraged to do what feels right and to write our stories that need to be shared.

This book will help you find the way of becoming your unique and personalized style.