From the introduction to Finger Exercises for Poets

"I often think about how my mother instilled this kind of discipline in me at an early age: art as practice at mastery, worthy of our time and focus. My instrument is the immensity of language, the techniques and effects of crafting images, shaping sound and rhythm, creating new combinations with the single notes of words, each colliding or coming together, meshing or crashing, standing firm or tumbling. There are eighty-eight keys on a piano, six hundred thousand words in the English language. The patterns, sequences and permutations of both are endless. For me, language is another kind of music. I practice poetry. This book invites you to practice along with me."

From "a poet of immense insight and masterful craft" (Kwame Dawes), Finger Exercises for Poets is an engaging and inspiriting invitation to practice poetry alongside one of its masters. With wide-ranging examples from classic and contemporary poets, Dorianne Laux demystifies the magic of language that makes great poetry and offers generative exercises to harness that magic. She explores the syllable and the line, the use of form, poetic responses to contemporary events and personal experiences, the imaginative leap, and the power of a distinct voice. As she writes in the introduction, "My instrument is the immensity of language.... There are eighty-eight keys on a piano, six hundred thousand words in the English language. The patterns, sequences, and permutations of both are endless. For me, language is another kind of music.... I practice poetry. This book invites you to practice along with me."

Throughout, Laux reminds us that poetry is a practice as much as an art and that poets must hone their language as a musician practicing an instrument.