Unbroken Line: Writing in the Lineage of Poetry

by Miriam Sagan

All the major formal aspects of poetry--from rhyme to meter and pantoum to villanelle--presented in an informal accessible style.

Genres: Writing, Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1999

About the author

Miriam Sagan founded the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College. She is author of twenty-five books, including her first novel, Coastal Lives, and her memoir Searching for a Mustard Seed: A Young Widow's Unconventional Story, which won Best Memoir of the Year from Independent Publishers Association.

She won the New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award in Poetry, and has received the Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read and wrote with each chapter of this skinny book all fall, trying things I never would have tried, if it weren't for Miriam Sagan's approach to understanding forms. She puts them in context -- lineage! -- and offers kind, clear encouragements for giving each an amateur's try. She honors her own context, New Mexico, and uses as examples poems from New Mexico's poets; brilliant. She whetted my appetite for more poems, more writing, more play with more forms. And glad to be alive in this literary-taste-testing-jumble of the 21st century.

If nothing else, this book let me shed my long-held resistance toward the haiku, a form with even more rules than you can shake a stick at (and I have).

Also: DAG, that sestina's a bear.

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ariel Gore recommended this book in her book about writing, so I picked up a cheap copy on Half.com. It is really good, accessible, easy and quick to read. I read it in less than two days and enjoyed it immensely. I can't wait to have to time to do some of the activities (they're not quite formal enough to call exercises) the author suggests.

I will for sure keep this one in my poetry library.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great reference book for any poet.