Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words

Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge is a poet and teacher who conducts workshops privately, as well as in the California Poets in the Schools program. Her exuberant, critically acclaimed teaching guide takes instructors, writers, and general readers into the very heart and intensity of life and the craft of expressing what one feels therefrom through the written word.

Poemcrazy is the poetic analog to Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird or Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, two classic works on how to forget that you "can't write" and just start the pen moving. Susan Wooldridge is a swimming instructor in the wide ocean of language, encouraging us to move ever farther from the shore, dive deep, and dance on the waves.

I wish there were more of this book because I just ate it up. It was like fluffy pancakes with syrup and real butter.

I imagine I am poet when I read this book. Every word and idea she shares is inspiring, down-to-earth, and really fun. I bought this book to get ideas for teaching my 11 year old how to write poetry (I am a beginner myself), and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the author's narrative as a poetry instructor. I read this book like I would a good novel. Because I am a beginner, I needed to someone to show me that there are poems floating around in my head, that I can write good stuff. This book gave me the confidence to try and I am so pleased with the results.

I am completely crazy about this book and I don't normally read poetry books or books about writing poetry. But as a HS librarian I was trying to find something to help my English teachers who struggle every year to come up with lesson ideas for their poetry units. I struck gold with this book. I actually took six of Wooldridge's ideas and created lesson plans from them which I share with the teachers. For example, I cut up an old wildflower book, laminated the pictures, so that teachers could do an activity about naming plants and then writing poetry about the names. Though I dabble a little in writing my own poetry, I find that I always enjoy following little formulas to help unlock my creative juices. This book has several cute and fun formulas to assist the beginning poets. I highly recommend this book!

This book is not a how to write a poem book. It is how to live your life so that maybe you can write a poem in 6 to 8 years.

Get it! I dare you! This book is awesome! I learn something new every time I pick it up. I love the freedom it promotes in creativity. Buy it!