The Heavy Lifting: A Boy’s Guide to Writing Poetry by Jeffrey Burghauser

New English Review Press is pleased to announce the publication of our forty-eighth title: The Heavy Lifting: A Boy’s Guide to Writing Poetry by Jeffrey Burghauser.

In The Heavy Lifting: A Boy’s Guide to Writing Poetry, acclaimed poet and educator Jeffrey Burghauser not only makes a case for poetry—he makes a case for poetry’s restoration to the prominence it once enjoyed among the manly arts. In short, pithy chapters, Burghauser guides the aspiring poet through the values, attitudes, and techniques required for a lifelong adventure in language. The Heavy Lifting is at once an instruction manual, a textbook, a manifesto, a piece of literary criticism, a polemic, a pep talk, and an anthology—a mélange recalling Ezra Pound’s 1934 classic ABC of Reading. Find a comfortable place to sit, open this book, and meet one of our most dynamic teachers of poetry.

Advance Praise for The Heavy Lifting: A Boy’s Guide to Writing Poetry:

“In The Heavy Lifting, Jeffrey Burghauser reveals a knowledge of and love for poetry that is simply astonishing in its range and depth. And his commitment to communicating his passion for verse and his skill at stirring the interests of readers – especially his target audience of boys and young men who are, perhaps, least likely to be receptive to what poetry has to offer them (intellectually, emotionally, spiritually) – is truly admirable. This book will be invaluable for teachers of poetry and for all who are keen to learn and enjoy what it has to offer, not only in the classroom, but for life. Every page is an inspiration.”

–Barry Spurr, Australia’s first Professor of Poetry and Literary Editor of Quadrant

Critical Praise for Jeffrey Burghauser’s Poetry:

“I have really never come across a poet as consistently excellent as Burghauser. I bow to his genius, and, were I U.S. President, I should make him Poet Laureate.”

—Alexander Waugh, author of The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War and General Editor of The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh

“Jeffrey Burghauser’s poetry tackles the eternal questions with verbal, intellectual and emotional precision.”

—Theodore Dalrymple, essayist and author of numerous books including Ramses: A Memoir

“Jeffrey Burghauser is a master of highly structured, traditional forms of poetry and he seems to inhabit the verse in a way that makes rhyme seem effortless. […] Burghauser is among the most competent poets I have read in recent years, and among the most satisfying.”

–Ivan Head, Quadrant