On Poetry

By Glyn Maxwell

On Poetry, the latest addition to the Oberon Masters series, is a collection of short essays and reflections on poetry from the acclaimed British poet Glyn Maxwell.


These essays illustrates Maxwell’s poetic philosophy, that the greatest verse arises from a harmony of mind and body, and that poetic forms originate in human necessities – breath, heartbeat, footstep, posture. He speaks of his inspirations, his models, and takes us inside the strange world of the Creative Writing Class, where four young hopefuls grapple with love, sex, cheap wine and hard work. Illustrated with examples from canonical poets, this is a beautiful and accessible guide to the most ancient and sublime of the realms of literature.


'The most compelling, original, charismatic and poetic guide to poetry that I can remember. A handbook written from the heart by one of the true modern masters of the craft.' Simon Armitage

• Language: English
• Publisher: OBERON BOOKS Ltd
• Release date: May 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781849435314

Glyn Maxwell

Glyn Maxwell has long been regarded as one of Britain’s major poets. He has been awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Somerset Maugham Prize, and the E.M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as being shortlisted three times for both the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes. Three of his books were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. His One Thousand Nights and Counting: Selected Poems was published last year. Many of his plays have been staged in London and New York. They include The Lifeblood, which was British Theatre Guide’s ‘Best Play on the Fringe’ at Edinburgh in 2004, Broken Journey and The Only Girl in the World (both Time Out Critics’ Choices). Oberon Books publishes his Plays One (The Lifeblood, The Only Girl in the World and Wolfpit), Plays Two (Broken Journey, Best Man Speech and The Last Valentine), The Forever Waltz, Liberty, After Troy, Merlin and the Woods of Time and the libretti The Lion’s Face and Seven Angels.

Reviews for On Poetry

[janetf8 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Convincing argument for form in poetry as a way of forcing writers to work harder and produce something memorable and based on human characteristics such as breath and gait. Using extracts from poems to illustrate points adds to the pleasure and the imaginary creative writing class contributes to making this a fascinating read.

[evenlake_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When I was on page 10, I loved this book, in no small part for this quote: "What evolutionary psychologists - and I - believe is that aesthetic preferences, those things we find beautiful, originate not in what renders life delightful or even endurable, but in what makes life possible."

Then I hated it by page 13, when he puts poets on a pedestal above pop musicians. "Songwriters stir up a living tradition, poets make flowers grow in the air." But I continued on, and by the end of the book I realized I had come to it with the expectation that it was a poetry primer, when it was in fact one man's experience and opinions about poetry. Once I understood that, and shed my preconceptions, I settled in and listened.

Overall not exactly my bag, but good enough and interesting enough that I finished it. If you like reading a poet waxing poetic about poetry, then you will probably like this book.