Preface: A word of welcome for teachesr and students

Section one: An introduction to poetry (1. Why do we write poems? ; 2. What is meaning? ; 3. What does talent have to do with anything? ; 4. Where do poems come from? ; 5. What does it mean to be a poet?).

Section two: The elements of poetry (6. Rhetorical construction ; 7. The elements of poetry [Ambiguity ; Beginnings ; Clarity ; Concision ; Contradiction ; Defamiliarization ; Dicton ; Doorways ; Endings ; Exploration ; Form ; Gate ; Gravity and lightness ; Image ; Inventory ; Language ; Lines ; Lyric ; Metaphor ; Mood ; Movement ; Music ; Narrative ; Observation and interptretation ; Point of view ; Precision ; Punctuation ; Questioning ; Repetition ; Rhythm ; Showing and telling ; Speaker ; Surprise ; Syntax ; Titles ; Value ; Voice; Work])

Section three: Practicalities (8. The poetry workshop ; 9. Revision ; 10. Proceed with caution).

Section four: Contemporary poetic modes: an anthology (Apostrophe [To the mountains / Eileen Myles ; To Juan Doe #234 / Edurdo C. Corral]; Ars poetica [Introduction to poetry / Billy Collisn ; Ars poetica / Traci Brimball ; Recognizing lightning / Eugenia Leigh] ; Aubade [Audbade with bread for the sparrows / Oliver de la Paz ; Aubade / Major Jackson ; Aubade ending with the death of a mosquito / Tarfia Faizullah] ; Documentary [Rape joke / Patricia Lockwood ; Boy in whale bone corset / Saeed Jones ; Split / Cathy Linh Che] ; Ekphrastic [History lesson / Ntasha Trewthey ; After Senzo Titolo, 1964 / Matthew Gavin Frank ; 1935/ Naomi Shihab Nye ; Quinta del Sondo / Monica Youn] ; Elegy [Elegy with lies / Bob Hicok ; The role of elegy / Mary Jo bang ; No more cake here / Natalie Diaz] ; Found poems [One star reviews of the Great Wall of China / Aimee Nezhukumatathil ; Found: Messiah / Jericho Brown] ; How-to [How to create an agnostic / Sherman Alexie ; How to locate water on a desert island / Karen Skolfield ; Lighter / Doriame Laux] ; List poems [alternate names for black boys / Danez Smith ; Thaings that didn't work / Catie Rosemargy ; Inventory elegy3: the dirtry entry / Ander Monson] ; Love poems][The bus ride / Jenny Johnson ; Mountain Dew commercial disguised as a love poem / Matthew Olzmann ; You don't know what love is / Kim Addonizio]).

Section four [cont.] (Lyric [I have to go back to 1984 and killa girl / Karyna McGlynn ; Tell me again about the last time you saw her / Gary L. McDowell ; Recovery / Kaveh Akbar] ; Meditations [Good bones / Maggie Smith ; Downhearted / Ada Limón ; Song / Tracy K. Smith ; Jet / Tony Hoagland] ; Narrative / Teacher of the Year / David Kirby ; Dynamite / Anders Carlson-Wee ; In which Christina imagines that different types of alcohol are here and she is seeing them all / Christina Olson] ; Nocturne [Nocturne / Kiki Petrosino ; Nocturne / Li-Young Lee] ; Occasional [One today / Richard Blanco ; Move-in / Janine Joseph ; After our daughter 's autism diagnosis / Kamilah Aisha Moon ; Halloween / Sandra Beasley] ; Ode [Ode to Jay-Z ending with the ratle of a friend's teeth / Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib ; Ode to buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt / Ross Gay ; Ode to stone / Terrance Hayes] ; Pastoral [Landscape with one of the earthworm's ten hearts / laura Kasischka ; In Chicano Park / David Tomas Martinez] ; Persona [Trumpet player, 1963 / Mark Halliday ; Of thee I sing / Ocean Vuong ; Wonder Woman dreams of the Amazon / Jeannine Hall Gailey] ; Portrait [For Jake "The Snake" Roberts on the occasion of making an unlikely out in Centerfield during a charity softball game / Colette Arrand ; Self portrait as a gorgeous tumor / Rebecca Hazleton ; Self-portrait as Wikipedia entry / Dean Rader] ; Protest [38 / Layli Long Soldier ; [from] Reaching Guantanamo / Slmaz Sharif ; Horses / Brian Turner ; The gun joke / Jamaal May]).

Appendix A: 75 poetry experiments

Appendix B: Additional reading.