Product Description

Stephen Fry believes that if you can speak and read English you can write poetry. But it is no fun if you don't know where to start or have been led to believe that Anything Goes. Stephen, who has long written poems, and indeed has written long poems, for his own private pleasure, invites you to discover the incomparable delights of metre, rhyme and verse forms. Whether you want to write a Petrarchan sonnet for your lover's birthday, an epithalamion for your sister's wedding or a villanelle excoriating the government's housing policy, The Ode Less Travelled will give you the tools and the confidence to do so. Brimful of enjoyable exercises, witty insights and simple step-by-step advice, "The Ode Less Travelled" guides the reader towards mastery and confidence in the Mother of the Arts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2213 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From the Inside Flap
Stephen Fry believes that if you can speak and read English you can write poetry. But it is no fun if you don’t know where to start or have been led to believe that Anything Goes.
Stephen, who has long written poems, and indeed has written long poems, for his own private pleasure, invites you to discover the incomparable delights of metre, rhyme and verse forms.
Whether you want to write a Petrarchan sonnet for your lover’s birthday, an epithalamion for your sister’s wedding or a villanelle excoriating the government’s housing policy, The Ode Less Travelled will give you the tools and the confidence to do so. Brimful of enjoyable exercises, witty insights and simple step-by-step advice, The Ode Less Travelled guides the reader towards mastery and confidence in the Mother of the Arts.

From the Back Cover
Stephen Fry believes that if you can speak and read English you can write poetry. But it is no fun if you don’t know where to start or have been led to believe that Anything Goes.

Stephen, who has long written poems, and indeed has written long poems, for his own private pleasure, invites you to discover the incomparable delights of metre, rhyme and verse forms.
Whether you want to write a Petrarchan sonnet for your lover’s birthday, an epithalamion for your sister’s wedding or a villanelle excoriating the government’s housing policy, this book will give you the tools and the confidence to do so.

Brimful of enjoyable exercises, witty insights and simple step-by-step advice, The Ode Less Travelled guides the reader towards mastery and confidence in the Mother of the Arts.

‘Fry’s extraordinary book is an idiots’ guide to the writing of poetry… You can’t but marvel at Fry’s easy familiarity with the rictameter and the rondeau redoublé and applaud the energy of his evangelistic zeal’ Independent on Sunday

‘With his usual wit and occasional obscenity, he takes us through an array of metrical forms and poetic structures, talking to us like a cajoling hearty teacher’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed’ Observer

‘A smart, sane and entertaining return to basics’ Daily Telegraph

‘Funny and instructive’ Spectator

About the Author
As well as being the bestselling author of four novels, The Stars' Tennis Balls, Making History, The Hippopotamus, and The Liar, and the first volume of his autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, Fry has played Peter in Peter's Friends, Wilde in the film Wilde, Jeeves in the television series Jeeves & Wooster and (a closely guarded show-business secret, this) Laurie in the television series Fry & Laurie.

Customer Reviews

Perfection in book form.
I confess to picking this book up because I saw Stephen Fry's name on the spine. But it was not fan-ship that made me unable to put it down again. I had no particular interest in poetry when I started reading it. Over the years I had written a few scribbled poems here and there, but that's as far as it went. This book has changed all that.

Since reading this book I have bought, read, and loved poetry for the first time in my life. I can actually appreciate what I'm reading now instead of being bored. I have also begun writing with so much more satisfaction than before. There's something empowering about knowing the "rules", rather than just floundering along trying to make things rhyme. Whether you choose to use them or not is up to you, he encourages you to try everything your own way, but whatever you decide, it's now a *choice* rather than just not knowing any better.

The text is written as if he is speaking to you. It's all very light and conversational, but it never feels like he's dumbing it down. You get all the technical jargon explained and used in its proper place, but in such a way that it actually makes *sense*. He will explain the root of a word perhaps (amphibrach - amphi: on both sides, brach: short. A foot with short stresses on both sides of a heavy stress.) which makes things stick in my head all the more. Instead of being bombarded by pompous long words, they're all taken apart and you realise that they are there for more than just confusing us mere mortals. The meaning becomes clearer the more the words are used, and the first time you read something like, "Most people would say that limericks are certainly anapaestic in nature and that amphibrachs belong only in classical quantitive verse," and realise that you understood every bit of it, and not only that, but you have an opinion on the topic... well, it's a very good feeling.

It's also the first how-to writing book that has actually made me laugh out loud. His humour is transfused throughout the book, making it a highly enjoyable read. He never takes himself overly seriously, but at the same time obviously cares deeply for his subject and is writing to share it with others.

I love this book very very much and have recommended it to friends, who have bought it and loved it as much as I do.

I'm living in hope that he might write more books like this!

Narrative form of explanation exceeds all expectations
As has been already mentioned by many people and (some) critics. Mr.Fry has this delightful ability to convey the more sophisticated concepts in his own unique and bohemian style. It's as though he is constantly with you at every single step you take towards the "secretive" chambers of poetry.

Much of his mode of instruction is his own understanding and takes on matters. For readers unaccustomed or irreverent towards his sense of humour (and I can see why) - this book may come across as though taught by an unschooled self-taught yet a talented, passionate boy who has a refreshing take on things who tries too hard to come across as smart, casual and formal at the same time.

Regardless, it's a worthy attempt, one that should be encouraged and welcomed and allowed to veneer in unorthodoxy.

Clever, witty, but...
Clever, but very opinionated. Its anti freeverse agenda makes it the Daily Mail of poetry books. I hope that would-be poets will balance their reading diet with a few less reactionary tomes.