In this lively introduction to writing poetry, poet John Redmond suggests that we should set aside the question of what poetry is and think about what poetry might be.

Through a series of chapters deigned as useful provocations, Redmond steers readers away from the 'default contemporary poem', urging fresh ways of thinking, insisting on 'the promise and opportunity of the blank page'. Traditional chapter topics like the sestina and the sonnet are abandoned in favour of more inspiring themes like variety, scale and background.:

The book draws on a wide array of examples, from sixth-century Ireland to contemporary Poland, and diverse cultural analogies from baseball to film. Rather than thinking of poems as having meanings, the book suggests that we should think of them as being like plays, of computer games, as experiences designed for the reader's benefit.