Introduction

In ‘Happy Endings’, celebrated Canadian author Margaret Atwood writes, ‘So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it’s the hardest to do anything with’.1 Atwood approaches the act of writing as a stimulating challenge — one that you have embraced by opening this book and wanting to learn, despite the difficulties of ‘the stretch in between’. Like all‘true connoisseurs’, you will come to realize that the challenge never ends, because on some level, composing poetry always feels like an act performed for the first time. As American poet Richard Hugo notes in his writing manual The Triggering Town, ‘you will always be chasing a way to write’.2