Yesterday’s post about the nature of art got Francesca thinking about creative expression, and she has books to recommend on the topic:
Francesca owns a copy of the National Geographic Photography Field Guide, and finds it a helpful resource with tips for creating more powerful photographs. She sees that they have now created more specified books, on subjects such as photographing People and Portraits, Your Family, Travel, Birds, Action/Adventure , and Landscapes. They also have volumes on digital photography and digital black & white photography. Francesca says: Have fun!
Writing Poems by Robert Wallace is a beautiful, inspiring hybrid of “textbook” and “powerful prose.” The book explains the difference between blank verse and free verse, between a villanelle and a sestina, between a Shakespearean sonnet and an Italian sonnet. It also contains poems which have become Francesca’s favorites, such as “Sentimental Poem” by Marge Piercy (written 1978), which expresses the sensuality of the Big Girl, though it pretends to do otherwise:
You are such a good cook.
I am such a good cook.
If we get involved
we’ll both get fat.
Then nobody else will have us.
We’ll be stuck, two
mounds of wet dough
baking high and fine
in the bed’s slow oven.
Happy reading!