Houseman is an individual smitten by poetry. His love and seemingly profound understanding for what he feels cannot be simply understood is wondrous. Where so many people search for meaning in so many aspects - life, the universe, a book, a film - he understands that poetry is something that exists without any meaning at all. There doesn't have to be an overall message to "get", nor does a poem have to convey some sort of thought or story. Poetry is a delicately written line (or lines) of words that are beautifully aesthetic and often times emotionally evoking.
Most of the examples Houseman provides in his writing are beautiful lines of poetry for certain, but any kind of coherent structure of thought is mostly void. There is some sort of ideal that the poem was born out of, but it is not fully drawn out and nor should it have to be.
Houseman delights in explaining his means of creating poetry. He describes his long walks (at times slightly intoxicated) where he lets his mind run. He talks of how he'll write incomplete pieces of an overall work down at a time with the hope that a stroll around the park the next day may finish and fill the gaps. He looks for inspiration in his thoughts and emotions simply as they are. He doesn't force the likes of poetry into existence, but waits for it to crawl into his mind and out through his fingers.
To Houseman, true poetry is emotional. One should have an incredibly strong reaction to a true poetical work. It should be felt in the pit of your stomach, and make your skin crawl and hair stand on end. It just not be understood, but must be felt.
The selections picked from A Poetry Handbook were quite wonderful insights to the creation of poetical pieces. What I found most interesting was the parallels these instructions had with that of acting. Specifically in Oliver's section of "Imitation" I couldn't help but smile as she pointed out the necessity and helpfulness to imitate great work and use it, learn it, work it, until we are able to come from it with something new and unique to ourselves. Every acting coach, teacher, director, etc will tell you to steal from the greats. If you see an actor do something interesting or unique, use it yourself! That individual was only ever able to come to that creative decision after using another's work themselves. And perhaps "stealing" is the wrong term, and would be more appropriately replaced with "borrowing".
Oliver is very straightforward and simple in her description of learning how to write poetry - one must write. You cannot learn how to write good works without picking up a writing utensil and scribbling some mash of words to a page. To really understand poetry one needs to read it, and imitate what they find in great works, and discover a unique voice for themselves through that process.
As one continues to read and write, one will discover the aesthetics of sounds in words, and will be able to make proper choices in combination and structure of sentences that will create beautiful lines of poetry. The last segment in the selected pieces dealt completely with the structure of words, how the beginning and end consonants or vowels hit by themselves or off another word, and how these sounds create an atmosphere and flowing piece. I would agree with anyone who says she goes a bit too far into detail in regards to dissecting the sounds of words and their placement in a piece; however, the fact that she is able to means there is something there when considering a great poet like Robert Frost. Once you begin writing, you'll discover an ear for words and find those that work and those that don't based on the circumstances. One need not worry themselves over such a thing - it comes with practice.
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