Writing with Power by Peter Elbow (review)

Book Reviews289 been a tendency to assume that accounts of rowdy or boisterous behavior is proof of the presence of the lower classes. Privilege and decorum need not be conjoint. One wishes, of course, that Shakespeare's audience could be defined with greater exactitude, but Cook gives a clear picture of the class that provided the bulk of its members. Not everyone will happily part with the notion of a mixed or vulgar audience at the public theaters as opposed to an aristocratic audience at the private theaters, and doing so will require a reexamination of many matters that had been conveniently explained by such an assumption. However, it is precisely to this reexamination that Cook convincingly and tellingly directs us. BRUCE E. BRANDT South Dakota State University Peter Elbow. Writing with Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. 372p. "This book taught me more about penguins than I wanted to know," a grade school student writes in her book report. That's almost the feeling I get reading Peter Elbow — except I wish I had had sense enough to know these things when I first started teaching and believed in Henry Canby: "A good writer knows what he wants to say before he begins to write." I used Elbow's Writing without Teachers for a composition textbook shortly after it was first published in 1973. His exuberance is infectious. What he says about writing is at least revolutionary if not downright subversive. You get a nagging feeling in the back of your mind that a lot of time wasting goes on in the teaching of writing — in your own teaching career going back twenty-five years. It's hard to shake off. My first exposure to teaching "free writing" came through listening to Ken Macrorie address a Minneapolis 4-C's conference in 1968, but as I used his books (Writing to Be Read and Telling Writing) for texts I usually felt they were incomplete — just scratching the surface of an itch much deeper. Writing Without Teachers scratched deeper, but its 190 pages seemed just beginning to discover something even more fundamental. Now Elbow applies his discoveries to all kinds of writing — from expository to poetry — and explores their implications (many illustrated by his personal quest for powerful writing) in depth. He begins with two basic assumptions: "Writing calls on two skills thatare so different that they usually conflict with each other: creating and criticising"; "Virtually everyone has available great skill with words." What follows are ways to tap those innate language powers we all have, ways to translate them into writing, and different processes to deal with the conflicting skills — creativity and revision — according to the nature of a given writing task and the timeavailable to finish it. The first five parts of the book seem especially strong, the author especially confident. The last part is written in many ways like the last part of Elbow's first book: as if the author is in the middle of a new discovery, dealing with elusive concepts such as establishing "voice" and "breathing experience into words." I suspect if there is a sequel to this book in another seven or eightyears, the author will entitle it the same as his final chapter: "Writing and Magic." While there are some suggested games and writing assignments — particularly in the chapter on poetry where he borrowsextensively from Kenneth Koch — there is no elaborate student apparatus. I can't imagine trying to "cover" the book in a 290ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW single course. Its greatvalue is as a lifelong reference source to develop writing skills. If as a teacheryou like an orderly, controlled, predictable (dull) teaching experience, this book is not for you. If on the other hand your interest is in the writing process itself and guiding others to become better writers, you just might find Writing with Power the most exciting book on the market today. DONNELL HUNTER Ricks College John Hollander. Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981. 54p. Rhyme's Reason "surveys the schemes, patterns, and forms of English verse, illustrating each variation with an original and wittily self-descriptive example," as...