Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises
by Marjorie Maddox
Kelsay Books, 2020
Inside Out by Marjorie Maddox fills a gap in instruction for young poets. Most books on poetic form offer a prose explanation followed by a stodgy example, or worse still, just a note that so-and-so’s poem uses this device. Maddox’s book places the young reader and writer at its center, with poetry that is incredibly accessible, without a whiff of treacle or a patronizing tone. Maddox welcomes the young writer in by engaging all of the senses, with poems about how to taste, see, hear, and touch a poem. These are playful and clear: “Close your eyes / what swims behind your lids / lights imagination.”
The book itself is divided into two sections. The first half consists of poems that not only exemplify the listed forms and rhetorical devices, but also make these devices the subjects of the poems themselves. Here’s the “Couplet” poem, which makes transparent the form:
Poetic twins all dressed in rhyme
stroll side-by-side in two straight lines.
Or this stanza from her poem on the “Caesura”:
Other times, twinging and twitching in fitful sleep,
she jerks awake
suddenly
apologetic after the fact about missing
the meter.
Maddox’s sense of joy, her exuberance in writing these poems, makes more familiar forms alive again. Here’s the start of the poem “Alliteration,”which uses the acrostic form to emphasize what part of the word is repeated:
Always repeat the initial sound
Listen to what the letters say and then
Let your ears do the talking.
My favorite of these is “Fishing for Sestinas,” which starts,
At first, there is only the paper
as plain as sleep without the dream,
as flat as the sea without its waves,
no sound, no ripple, no fish
slipping in and out so
suspiciously. Ah, now write
Sestinas are notoriously difficult to write, and Maddox’s sestina feels effortless, as transparent as the sea.
The second half of the book—the Insider Exercises, because we now feel like insiders to the secrets of form—offers ways for young readers to become young writers. Maddox’s prose here is enthusiastic, friendly, comforting. It takes away the worry or stress of writing a poem. Here, writing is all the act of doing, engaging in the senses, and treating the poem like a friend to be discovered. The exercises feel welcoming, such as one of her suggestions for personification: compose “a poem from the point of view of a piano to the person who is taking lessons.”
The last pages of the book are a glossary. Seeing that traditional list brings back home the power of the poems that Maddox has written, each a little jewel about writing.
Inside Out is a valuable resource for teachers and young writers alike.
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E. A. Miller Mlcak is a writer, teacher, and resilience coach living outside of Boston. She is currently working on a poetry collaboration with the poet Mark Scroggins as well as an essay on consequential strangers. She teaches in the Young Writers Workshop at Simon’s Rock College of Bard.