Introduction: Technology and inspiration

Part 1: Invoking poems : inspirations and materials. Inspiration : the wood between the worlds ; Poetry as nourishment : how to read like a poet

Thirty-nine ways to make a poem : a generative resource ; The raw material : words and their roots ; Three modes of poetry : lyric, dramatic, and narrative

Part 2: Making poems : sense and sound. Making senses : imagery and abstraction ; Turn, turn, turn : metaphors and other tropes ; What if a much of a which of a word-music? ; Syntax and rhetorical structure : words in order and disorder ; Stop making sense : exploratory poetics and poetic experiments

Part 3: Breathing poems : rhythm and meter. Hearing the beat : accent and accentual poetry ; Meter : a language for the body ; The many voices of iambic meter ; The metrical palette : beyond iambic pentameter ; Forms of free verse

Part 4: Shaping poems : structure and form. Stanzas : a poem's breathing rooms ; Worth repeating : forms based on repetition ; Chaos in fourteen lines : the sonnet ; Deep story : the ballad

Part 5: Sharing poems : publishing and performing. Revisioning revision ; Bearing the gift : sharing your poetry through publication and readings ; Getting it together : creating a chapbook or book.