Given the title, one may think that Primer is an introduction to poetry or an instructional poetry manual. In some sense, it does introduce poetry, especially as it mentions various well-known poems such as Keats’ “This Living Hand” and Stevens’ “Anecdote of the Jar.” Rather than being yet another craft manual, Primer examines how and why we create poetry, encouraging poets to be more intentional readers and writers, but also exploring how the act of creating poetry opens up new possibilities in the world beyond literature, changing how we think and engage with the world around us.

Instead of listing various techniques to apply, Primer considers how we might shape our poems on a more ideological level, similar in method to how other artists might form pottery or paintings. Rather than simply borrowing techniques from other practices and applying them to poetry, however, Beachy-Quick and Rice prod these ideas and techniques to push their creative potential farther. For example, Rice surmises on a discussion of the line (both physical lines on a page as well as poetic lines), “I wonder if this idea contains a geometric principle, a principle for a ‘poetic geometry’. As line limps to line, it slants or skews at an angle, falling inward. If we extend this motion, it is conceivable to me that the lines of a poem might eventually curve and close, by virtue of their error, into a circle” (52). This return to the concept of a circle, explored in the book’s first chapter, “Circularities,” suggests that poetry not only can function in mathematical or sacred geometrical ways but that it also serves as a return to oneself, or perhaps, a return to itself.

Beachy-Quick and Rice, throughout the book, consider the poem as an agential entity much in the mode of object-oriented ontology. If we follow OOO theory in regards to Primer, it is human engagement with the poem that affects us; the poem was there all along. Many books on poetry and poetics consider poems to be handcrafted by humans. Beachy-Quick and Rice’s rejection of this approach not only decenters anthropocentrism from the craft of poetry but also helps us to see poetry in everyday life, in the very geometry that Rice suggests is present in objects and agents with which with interact daily, poems included.

This focus on poetry in everyday moments comprising the larger world is woven throughout the book, from the first pages in which “the figure of the pot” (7) is related to poetry, to Beachy-Quick’s final thoughts, in which he observes,

The world enters into us and it feels unspeakable. And then you learn to speak—in it, of it. And what you say seems to speak only to this one life you have. A voice that voices you. And the words meant to describe a life can feel as if they isolate that life, but no, they don’t. The words that seem to work against the world work on behalf of it. It keeps for us in common what we don’t know by ourselves how to share—the world. (143)

This concept of poetry as contributing positively to the world and to those who inhabit it isn’t new, yet how Beachy-Quick and Rice actually connect poetry to the larger world, not only through works of literary prowess but through other artistic endeavors and interdisciplinary fields is refreshingly effective. They aren’t just saying poetry matters, they’re proving it.

Primer’s organization takes a more macro focus to poetry and poetics with the book’s three chapters (conversations, really, which I explore in the next paragraph), focused on “Circularities,” “Geometries,” and “Ethics,” respectively. These foci provide a theme around which the discussion between the authors swirls. Because of each topic’s broadness, Beachy-Quick and Rice are able to make a wide range of connections between poetry, poetics, other texts, and the broader world. However, because of the span of information contained within each chapter, some readers might feel a bit overwhelmed or find the discussion disorganized or unfocused, especially since the book, unlike the books many folks are likely used to reading, is not necessarily organized in a linear fashion that clearly follows a delineated thesis. I personally found the organization to be a nice change of pace but can certainly see how other readers might feel differently.

The book’s organization is unique among books on poetics in that it’s essentially a back-and-forth between the authors, Beachy-Quick and Rice, based on conversations that took place over Zoom in February and May of 2022, and in June 2022 at the Centre of Pompidou in Paris, France. As the text uses the term “conducted” when mentioning the dates and locations, one could infer that the chapters are interviews, though they read less as short interview questions that garner lengthy replies and more as a discussion that grows and deepens organically, as the two authors delve into aspects and theories of poetics and poetry while letting the other’s examples move their analyses and interpretations onward.

Another unique aspect of Primer that separates it from other poetics texts is that Beachy-Quick and Rice bring in examples beyond poetry as genre. Grecian stories, quotes from Thoreau and Emerson, and even Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab show up in Beachy-Quick and Rice’s work. Their interrogations of these outside texts both highlight the role of poetics in genres often not considered to be poetry, even if they’re lauded as great works of prose, and illustrate how we might see poetry operating in the broader world.

Primer concludes with a section titled “Diapason,” which refers to an organ stop that covers its complete pitch, or the entirety of musical ranges. This section, which begins with a quote by T.S. Eliot that reads “You are here to kneel / Where prayer has been valid” (144) is made up of several original poems seemingly based off of poems Beachy-Quick and Rice have discussed earlier. For example, the poem “A Jar in Tennessee” is clearly influenced by Stevens’ “Anecdote of the Jar,” though this new interpretation focuses instead on the hills and then the reflection on those hills transports the reader to “that afternoon in the Marais with you,/and later at the Pompidou, where I asked you/if we have to make our lives the crisis” (146). One quirk about these poems is that they are unsigned. It is not clear whether Beachy-Quick, Rice, or the two in  collaboration penned these final gems. This omission seems intentional and, following the premises of the book, moves the focus away from the poems’ authors(s) and to the words of the poems themselves and how they might function as a suite, encompassing a full range of musical tones.

I wouldn’t want to conclude this review without also briefly highlighting the importance of accessibility in Beachy-Quick and Rice’s Primer. Free Poetry Press provides its chapbooks and books on poetics free of charge and without copyright, encouraging readers to download and circulate their works as they see fit. This method of dissemination in our age of late-stage capitalism is as refreshing as Primer; that is, poetry’s connection to the greater world as illustrated in Primer is directly embodied in how Free Poetry Press makes this text available to its readership.

Despite Beachy-Quick and Rice’s seemingly simple title, Primer may be a challenging read for those just beginning their journey of poetry and poetics, as it brings in many textual examples and notions that could muddy the waters for writers and readers new to the genre or unfamiliar with the excerpts Beachy-Quick and Rice utilize. That said, this complexity is extremely helpful for more advanced writers and readers more who are quite familiar with introductory techniques and jargon of poetry and poetics and are looking for something beyond the surface-level manual, an informed return to poetry’s Modernist roots, who want a more philosophical understanding of the genre along with how and why it intersects with the world around it.