About the Exercises
The following exercises are writing assignments from Stephen Fry’s excellent book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within. Some of them were very challenging and it took me about half a year of procrastination to finish. Reading Fry’s examples for each exercise was very entertaining and I looked around on the internet, expecting to find many examples written by others. Sadly, I didn’t have much luck finding any, which is one of the reasons I’ve posted my own writings in the hope of entertaining/encouraging other readers of Fry’s book and inspiring other poetry lovers to give it a try.
NB. I’ve included abbreviated summaries of the assignments, but the book has much more detail. Also, please excuse the poor formatting on several of the poems; this free WordPress blog doesn’t give me the ability to include the indentation that I would desire.
OmniRambles 
Great to see this. I’m on exercise 13 (the Sestina) and was hoping to compare with others! Will peruse in detail.
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Good to hear, Donal! The sestina was challenging and not my favourite form to work with, but surprisingly, the end result was one of the poems I liked best. Anyway, good luck writing yours and if you feel comfortable, do share it in the comments.
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I just released a book of poetry on kindle entitled Wit and Wonder: Poetry with Rhythm and Rhyme. I am also a fan of the Ode Less Traveled and it was one of the resources I used in writing and editing my poetry. I was hoping you might consider reviewing my book on your blog. The amazon look inside feature should let you read a few poems to see if you’re interested. I’m planning on having a print copy for order by April for national poetry month. Thanks. James Herren.
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Hi James, thanks for reaching out and congratulations on your new release! I very much enjoyed reading the sample selection of your poems that is available on Amazon and would be more than happy to review your book in full if you send me a digital copy.
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Actually even easier than that, all day february 2nd I will be running a promotion… my book will be free all day.
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Perfect! I look forward to reading more of your poetry and will download your book on Feb 2.
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Quick update: I loved your book, James! Here is a link to my review: https://omnirambles.com/2017/02/08/wit-and-wonder/
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Thank you for the kind words, far more kind and more favorable than I had dared to hope for. You are the first outside of my family and my editor to give me feedback on my work. Whatever the world may say of my poetry in the near or far it lifts my heart to know that my poetry found a home and a connection with someone such as yourself, a lover of poems, words, and language. Truly it means the world to me. Thank you.
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It was a privilege to be among the first to read your work. I know self-publishing can be a challenge, but I think you are deserving of a wide audience and I hope you find them!
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