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How to Think Like a Poet by Dai George
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How to Think Like a Poet

The Poets That Made Our World and Why We Need Them

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Narrator Ben Onwukwe

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Length 12 hours 43 minutes
Language English
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Bloomsbury presents… How to Think Like a Poet: The Poets That Made Our World and Why We Need Them by Dai George, read by Ben Onwukwe

An entertaining guide to history's most influential and inspiring poets – from Homer and Sappho to Shakespeare and Frank O'Hara – and how they can teach us to better understand the world around us.

How did the greatest poets in history make the world anew? And what can we learn from the magic, wisdom and humour of their poetry? From the genius of the Ancient Greeks through to the love poetry and metaphysics of the Renaissance, through to the New York poets of the 20th century, this is the ultimate guide to the greatest writers of the human age.

Through short, biographical portraits, poet and writer Dai George provides an entertaining introduction to the great works of poetry, and a welcoming guide to how we can read them. He addresses questions poets have grappled with: How can we truly describe the world? How can we express love, grief or friendship? How can poetry help us to understand justice, dreams or anger?

This book paints vivid pictures of a global selection of renowned poets throughout history: from Sappho, Li Bai and Rumi, to William Shakespeare and John Donne, to Frank O Hara, Pablo Neruda and Sylvia Plath. George also seeks to re-examine the canon, traditionally dominated by Western, white and male poets, and bring to light major figures from other important cultures and communities, including China, India and the Caribbean.

Dai George is a poet, novelist, critic and academic. His first poetry collection, The Claims Office, was an Evening Standard book of the year and his second, titled Karaoke King, was published by Seren in June 2021. His first novel, The Counterplot, was published as an Audible Original in 2019, and he is currently working on his second. He is the former reviews editor of Poetry London and has taught poetry and creative writing for many years at various universities. He is currently Lecturer in Creative Arts and Humantieis at UCL.

His poetry has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Review, Poetry Wales and Islands Are But Mountains: New Poetry from the United Kingdom. His criticism and non-fiction features in popular and academic forums including the Guardian, The White Review, and Cambridge Quarterly.

Alongside Sarah Howe and Vidyan Ravinthiran, George was a founding editor of the online poetry journal Prac Crit, which drew a large global readership across its five-year lifespan.

Audiobook details

Author:

Narrator:
Ben Onwukwe

ISBN:
9781399408271

Length:
12 hours 43 minutes

Language:
English

Publisher:
Bloomsbury Publishing

Publication date:

Edition:
Unabridged

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Limited-time offer

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Reviews

Poetry haters will fall in love with poetry and the poetry lover will walk away refreshed after reading just a few pages of this authoritative, wide-ranging and witty book that is persistently fascinating and always an easy read! This is a wonderfully lucid and compelling account of how poetry works and why it matters. In 24 exhilarating chapters, George guides us from Homer’s Iliad to the Instapoetry of today. A triumph in both concept and execution, How to Think Like a Poet fizzes almost audibly with intellectual energy and excitement. With an infectious delight in his material, Dai George is a sure and skilful guide through some of poetry’s most significant waters, opening our eyes to its everyday wonders. Thanks to its consciously global canvas, How to Think Like a Poet does something rather different to your usual poetic history or handbook, opening up fresh connections and avenues of thought across its chapters. George's agile, luminous, refreshing readings of individual poets down the centuries reveal just how much they have to offer us today. An entertaining guide to the rhyme and reason of poetry… capacious and curious. George has an admirable ability to get to the heart of things in just a few lines. Dai George distils a lifetime’s poetic thinking and reading into this warm, accessible book. Expand reviews
The perfect last-minute gift Shop credit bundles