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Jan 27, 2009

Carrie rated it:

Not, perhaps, quite so detailed as I would have liked. However, it is written with all the wit, clarity and charming-ness that one has come to expect of Mr Fry. And it is beautifully presented. I particularly appreciated the use of a table to show the way in which a poem worked, its rhyme scheme folding in on itself like a collapsing umbrella.

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Aug 19, 2011

Antonio Christopher rated it:

As a future English student, and a fan of Stephen Fry's writing I couldn't resist picking up this book and it didn't disappoint.

Stephen Fry guides us into the world of poetry and prosody with effortless charm and light hearted humour. He makes what could potentially be a dry and pretentious topic into a highly enjoyable and informative read. The definitions and descriptions of complicated greek terminology are backed up with historical examples making this book suitable for someone w More...

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Sep 27, 2010

Teresa rated it:

There s no shame in admitting you play guitar in your spare time, or that you are an amateur photographer, or an avid baker, or a dabbler in watercolors. But there s something a little odd in saying you write poetry for fun, says Stephen Fry.[return][return]Fry, believing that poetry can be a fun way to play with language, wants to give aspiring poetic hobbyists what other hobbyists have in abundance a guide to improve their play. The point, says Fry, is to have fun, whatever you choose to wa More...

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May 25, 2010

Ellie rated it:

Believe you me, I have no inner poet but I thought I might learn something about poetry by reading this and I am. The writing is great and I get to pretend that Stephen Fry is my professor and I'm sitting at his knee (so to speak). So far (and I'm only on the first chapter) I'm having a great time.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2011

Billy rated it:

Whatever the reason, I picked up almost zero poetry in my formal education. A grade school lesson defining haiku and diamante, some time on Shakespeare and Jack Donne (and naturally I recited "A valediction, forbidding mourning" as a goodbye to maybe more than one high school or college-era girlfriend), but otherwise nothing. Coming from that angle, and as someone who generally admires and appreciates Stephen Fry as a public personality, this was a joyous way to fill in the gap. It' More...

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Feb 23, 2010

Pete rated it:

I just can't remember touching poetry during my incarceration at school. If I was asked I'd have probably said that a villanelle was a female pickpocket. Stephen Fry's book is a wonderful idiots guide through iambic pentameter, the trochee, spondee and all the twiddledy dees of meter and rhyme from Homer through to Zephaniah.
Mr Fry is a blast. If you are into poetry, then this book, I'm sure, will enrich your experience. If you hate poetry, then 'The Ode Less Travelled' is just what you More...

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Jun 04, 2009

Becky rated it:

I learned so much from this book, so entertainingly presented...It was one of those books, like Nine Gates by Jane Hirshfield, that I could have turned around and just started reading again, immediately -- except, in the case of Nine Gates, my friend Tony, coffee shop owner and dead-ringer for Jimmy Stewart, had already, seeing me reading it in his restaurant, asked to borrow it.

Stephen Fry is (surprisingly, to me -- for no good reason) extremely literate and well-educated. Not only More...

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Feb 09, 2010

Alik rated it:

This was a pleasurable listen, and might be a pleasurable read. I wish I had Fry for an English teacher. But then, my teachers weren't that bad. Well, I am not sure about the didactic value or presentational consistence or something of that kind concerning the book in question, but I did immensely enjoy the way Fry told me about all the things I had actually already known. And this is akin to the point he explicitly makes regarding his own poetry, his is too well-known, too "noisy" to More...

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Jul 24, 2009

Debbie (Readerbuzz) rated it:

Fry cleverly drags out the reading of this book by forcing the reader to take a vow to read all the poems aloud and to do all the exercises in the book. I did well until I came to the next-to-last chapter of the book, a chapter on forms. I admit it: I didn't do any of the exercises on writing pantoums and ballads and haiku. I fully intend to go back and do these at my leisure, but I felt a strong need to go ahead and finish the blooming book. It does count, right? I don't think we have any requi More...

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Jul 22, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

The only -- and I do mean the only -- negative thing I can say about this book is that Stephen Fry has taken the run-on sentence to pathological levels. The occasional grammatical slip-up hardly warrants notice, but I swear that throughout all 327 pages of this book, there was at least one run-on sentence per page. Someone (preferably his editor?) needs to pull him aside and introduce him to semi-colons.

Other than that editing issue, this book was buckets of fun and superbly useful More...

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Jun 26, 2009

Robert rated it:

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 More...

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Nov 06, 2009

David rated it:

A most entertaining and informative guide to harnessing the creative powers to poetic expression, using the age-old techniques of iambic pentameter, etc. He explains it all very wittily and the book should be in every lit crit class syllabus. I rewrote a load of poems myself very effectively. It helped improve my limericks too.

There was a young parson named Bings,
Who talked about God and such things;
But his secret desire
Was a boy in the choir
With a bottom li

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Apr 12, 2010

Jenny rated it:

No matter how brilliant Stephen Fry is as an actor and social commentator, when he is offered a knighthood, it will be for his contribution to the craft of poetry.

In The Ode Less Travelled he gently, wittily, inexorably insists on poets learning and mastering the "rules" of their craft. Fortunately, he's a good guide. I've had the book for ages and still haven't reached the end. With this book, the journey is the goal.

Thank you, Sir Fry.

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Dec 09, 2008

Matthew rated it:

This book is vastly entertaining just to read, but I'd like to use it in the manner for which it was intended, as an instructional guide to exploring poetic forms by writing poetry. I'd love to find other readers who'd like to do the same, so we can compare notes (and poems) as we work our way through the book. If you're interested, contact me through GoodReads or at gatheringwater@yahoo.com.

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Sep 23, 2011

Mike rated it:

Not a great Stephen Fry fan, but this is an excellent book for the budding or relatively experienced poet. May be too basic for the established poet. Lots of light humour, a sprinking of obscenities. Good review of meter and rhythm and poetic forms. His own examples are bit trite at times, but overall I found it an enjoyable and very informative read. Recommended.

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Aug 28, 2010

Nikki rated it:

I've been dipping in and out of this, rather than reading it straight through once. It isn't a textbook, if that's what you're looking for, but it is a very helpful guide. Stephen Fry's tone is light, funny, but his explanations and examples are good, and his attitude toward poetry -- that anyone can do it -- is refreshing. He's got a good overview of a lot of forms.

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Apr 26, 2009

Peter rated it:

Took me a long time to read this book; it's a very well written scholarly work and i thoroughly enjoyed it. Having read the book I picked up a copy of the audio book from the library and gave it a second go. Enjoyed it even more. If you are interested in poetry or would like to try and write poetry; this is definitely worth reading.

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Jun 03, 2009

Espen rated it:

Anything Stephen Fry writes is bound to be a joyous experience, but this one has to rank among his best (possibly only beaten by his autobiography and "The Hippopotamus", my absolute favorite.)

In this peon to poetry, Stephen Fry shows the rules and rhythms of how to construct a poem, allowing you to see the many intriguing details and quite possibly get on with writing some yourself. I knew about trochees and jambs and so on, but had no idea about the villanelle, for instan More...

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Aug 08, 2011

James rated it:

This book is one of the best books on the basics of writing poetry I have ever come across. Fry uses his famed skill and knowledge of the English language to deliver a linguistic delight. I think that if this book were added as HS required reading, the world would have many more poets in it (and that's not a bad thing).

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Jul 29, 2008

Suzanne rated it:

I went through 4 high school years of IB/AP English classes and then a Bachelor's degree in English (admittedly the technical writing track, but it still entailed many literature classes), but I think this book taught me more about poetry than all those classes. The schoolroom focused on particular works (and most often, novels or plays, except for a study of Shakespeare's sonnets); Fry focuses on the many, many forms of poetry and just gives specific works as examples, but it left me feeling I More...

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Jul 01, 2011

Jamison rated it:

i need to settle in, and buy this book. it's a good reference of the different styles of poetry, and how to write them. with a dry wit, and a surprisingly good knowledge of english, fry makes you want to read this again and again, just to conquer some of the old ways of expressing yourself.

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Jul 25, 2011

Justin rated it:

Exactly what one would expect of Fry--witty, charming, and at times absurd. What is most surprising is how useful a pedagogic text it is, for both the teacher and the autodidact. An essential and practical work for those contemplating a walk in Wordsworth's shoes.

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Aug 13, 2011

Derek rated it:

Fry's wit and enthusiasm make for an enjoyable tutorial in poetry: metre, rhyme and form. There's a little bit of showing off, so some parts aren't properly explained. But where this is under control, it is immensely informative and you can't help wishing your school textbooks had been written like this.

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Mar 31, 2009

Charles rated it:

In case you don't recognize the name, Stephen Fry is the enormously funny British actor who plays Jeeves on Jeeves and Wooster. This book is highly readable and entertaining. It is worth reading even if you have no intention of ever writing poetry.

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Mar 26, 2009

Phlippa rated it:

Don't know much about Mr. Fry, but do love poetry. And here's a good new book which shares my love and assures those who are afraid of poetry that it's not only loveable and not fearsome, but vital. Very happy this book was written.

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Feb 03, 2009

David rated it:

Another fabulous book from Stephen Fry. Although you are reading the book, Stephen seems to jump out of the pages and read it to you. This book has given me a new appreciation from Poetry and the 'science' behind how it is undertaken.

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Mar 04, 2011

Alan rated it:

Well, it took me nearly two and half years, but I have completed this thoroughly entertaining and compelling introduction to poetry. I won't say that I completed every single one of the exercises that Mr Fry set me (there are some fiendishly difficult, and in my opinion nearly pointless, forms about two thirds of the way through) but I completed the majority.

Thanks to Mr Fry's tutelage, my poems, although obviously not world-beaters, at least did sound somewhat like poetry, which is a More...

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Aug 04, 2009

Brad rated it:

Poetry is my least favorite genre, yet I really enjoyed learning about the mechanics of poetry from this book. It is fun to read, with terrific examples, and many exercises (that I did not do). I have, however, quickly forgotten much of it already, but it remains a great reference too.

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Dec 30, 2011

Celeste is currently reading it

So far, fantastic! I'm a poetic idiot, so learning the basics with Fry's sense of humor works. As per the introductory instructions, I'm reading this s-l-o-w-l-y, so don't expect to finish for a while.

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Jul 21, 2011

Melinda is currently reading it

This book is just fun. Fry uses his understanding of the english language and elements of poetry to open up a process for writing (and understanding). Wish I'd had this in high school and college.

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