Description: An entertaining guide to history's most influential and inspiring poets - from Homer and Sappho to Shakespeare and Frank O'Hara.
Brief description:
Dai George is a poet, novelist, critic and academic. His first poetry collection, The Claims Office, was an Evening Standard book of the year and his second, titled Karaoke King, was published by Seren in June 2021. His first novel, The Counterplot, was published as an Audible Original in 2019, and he is currently working on his second. He is the former reviews editor of Poetry London and has taught poetry and creative writing for many years at various universities. He is currently Lecturer in Creative Arts and Humantieis at UCL.
His poetry has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Review, Poetry Wales and Islands Are But Mountains: New Poetry from the United Kingdom. His criticism and non-fiction features in popular and academic forums including the Guardian, The White Review, and Cambridge Quarterly. Alongside Sarah Howe and Vidyan Ravinthiran, George was a founding editor of the online poetry journal Prac Crit, which drew a large global readership across its five-year lifespan.Review Quotes:
"An entertaining guide to the rhyme and reason of poetry... capacious and curious. George has an admirable ability to get to the heart of things in just a few lines. Dai George distils a lifetime's poetic thinking and reading into this warm, accessible book." --Clare Pollard, The Idler
"This is a wonderfully lucid and compelling account of how poetry works and why it matters. In 24 exhilarating chapters, George guides us from Homer's Iliad to the Instapoetry of today. A triumph in both concept and execution, How to Think Like a Poet fizzes almost audibly with intellectual energy and excitement. " --Mark Ford, Professor of English Literature, University College London "With an infectious delight in his material, Dai George is a sure and skilful guide through some of poetry's most significant waters, opening our eyes to its everyday wonders. Thanks to its consciously global canvas, How to Think Like a Poet does something rather different to your usual poetic history or handbook, opening up fresh connections and avenues of thought across its chapters. George's agile, luminous, refreshing readings of individual poets down the centuries reveal just how much they have to offer us today." --Sarah Howe, British poet and lecturer in poetry at King's College, London "Poetry haters will fall in love with poetry and the poetry lover will walk away refreshed after reading just a few pages of this authoritative, wide-ranging and witty book that is persistently fascinating and always an easy read!" --Daljit Nagra, British poet and author of Indiom