Eleanor Wilner is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Tourist in Hell and The Girl with Bees in Her Hair; she has also published a verse translation of Euripides’s Medea and a book on visionary imagination. Her awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Juniper Prize, Pushcart Prizes, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. A 40-year veteran of teaching, she has taught for over 20 years for the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Maurice Manning is the author of The Gone and the Going Away and The Common Man , which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, as well as Bucolics , A Companion for Owls, and Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions. He has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and has held a Guggenheim Fellowship. Currently, Manning teaches at Transylvania University.

An anthology can be many books in one. I must admit that I have sometimes found anthologies breathlessly unsatisfying. But I was absorbed until the very end of the two hundred and twelve pages of the engagingly named Rag-Picker's Guide to Poetry. All of the thirty-five featured poets have held residencies at Warren Wilson College 'in the mountains of North Carolina'. As a British reader with an interest in North American poetry, I found some familiar and many fresh names... The Rag-Picker's Guide to Poetry is a capacious anthology, starred with insights into writing - and some very practical help. It made me want to read. It also made me want to write, and to think harder about the kind of books I want to make.

Eleanor Wilner is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Tourist in Hell and The Girl with Bees in Her Hair; she has also published a verse translation of Euripides’s Medea and a book on visionary imagination. Her awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Juniper Prize, Pushcart Prizes, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. A 40-year veteran of teaching, she has taught for over 20 years for the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Maurice Manning is the author of The Gone and the Going Away and The Common Man , which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, as well as Bucolics , A Companion for Owls, and Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions. He has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and has held a Guggenheim Fellowship. Currently, Manning teaches at Transylvania University.

An anthology can be many books in one. I must admit that I have sometimes found anthologies breathlessly unsatisfying. But I was absorbed until the very end of the two hundred and twelve pages of the engagingly named Rag-Picker's Guide to Poetry. All of the thirty-five featured poets have held residencies at Warren Wilson College 'in the mountains of North Carolina'. As a British reader with an interest in North American poetry, I found some familiar and many fresh names... The Rag-Picker's Guide to Poetry is a capacious anthology, starred with insights into writing - and some very practical help. It made me want to read. It also made me want to write, and to think harder about the kind of books I want to make.

Eleanor Wilner is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Tourist in Hell and The Girl with Bees in Her Hair; she has also published a verse translation of Euripides’s Medea and a book on visionary imagination. Her awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Juniper Prize, Pushcart Prizes, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. A 40-year veteran of teaching, she has taught for over 20 years for the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Maurice Manning is the author of The Gone and the Going Away and The Common Man , which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, as well as Bucolics , A Companion for Owls, and Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions. He has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and has held a Guggenheim Fellowship. Currently, Manning teaches at Transylvania University.

An anthology can be many books in one. I must admit that I have sometimes found anthologies breathlessly unsatisfying. But I was absorbed until the very end of the two hundred and twelve pages of the engagingly named Rag-Picker's Guide to Poetry. All of the thirty-five featured poets have held residencies at Warren Wilson College 'in the mountains of North Carolina'. As a British reader with an interest in North American poetry, I found some familiar and many fresh names... The Rag-Picker's Guide to Poetry is a capacious anthology, starred with insights into writing - and some very practical help. It made me want to read. It also made me want to write, and to think harder about the kind of books I want to make.