What is Reddit's opinion of A Poetry Handbook?

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Some excellent advice on how to write poetry, which is, after all, what you asked about!

Here's something to put in the pile next to it, some thoughts on becoming a poet. I mean that in a very broad way, after all I am only occasionally a poet of sorts and barely even then, so I hardly speak with professional expertise. Anyway:

Some steps to becoming a poet:

1. Stop, in all sorts of moments.
2. Sip the world, inhale the world, gulp it down. All are important tastings.
3. Sit your mind outside and high above it all. See how things connect, what separates them and what moves them together and apart.
4. Practice letting your thoughts and your feelings sit in the palm of your hand, so you can gently turn them over and around and around, knowing them better from all sides
5. Listen, a lot. Touch, and be touched. Watch without words.
6. Learn endlessly about words, their insides (grammar and linguistics) and their outsides (how they connect)
7. Spend time with visual art and music. Rhythm and space are particularly important in free verse.
8. Write a lot of poems about things that don't matter to you, so that your craft is ready for the things that do.
9. Ask for this: https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Handbook-Mary-Oliver/dp/0156724006 for your birthday, Christmas or other gift receiving occasion, if you're fortunate to have people who would get it for you.
10. Have a life well suited and well lived.

I honestly enjoy this and I'm warmed by your hope at the end. You know the future exists and there will be more sunsets so you're hopeful to see them without expectations of something better but equal beauty. Your message is clear and wonderful.

Try reading A Poetry Handbook for poetic struct. It may be Google's first suggestion but it actually seems like quite a good one.

I’m going to open with one of my favorite quotes about poetic technique, from Victor Hugo: “So if I seem to talk technique now and then and urge you to learn more, it is not so you will remember it when you write but so you can forget it. Once you have a certain amount of accumulated technique, you can forget it in the act of writing. Those moves that are naturally yours will stay with you and will come forth mysteriously when needed.”
This is the spirit of my response. There are techniques I recommend people know when they write poetry, but it’s not because it won’t be a good poem if they don’t use them; it’s because knowing them gives a poet stronger ‘muscles’ to write whatever poetry they like.
If I can hazard an analogy - a two year old doesn’t have a huge vocabulary. When she feels big feelings, she quickly runs out of words to explain what’s going on in her body and mind, and she resorts to some pretty primitive vocalizations, if you know what I mean. Poems by beginners can sound a little like that - big feelings with a small, predictable vocabulary of words and ideas, delivered with little nuance. But like, it’s a two year old - you absolutely cannot blame them for, say, not being able to cope with loss like a 35 year old, just like you would never blame a beginner poet for writing beginner poetry. But if a beginner poet wants to ‘join the conversation,’ I recommend they start building that toolkit that is at their fingertips when they write and read.
So to finally answer your question directly - yes, there are fundamentals that I personally believe poets should be at least aware of when writing a poem. Not knowing these fundamentals shouldn’t stop anyone from continuing to read and write, but I have found many poets find the process of reading and writing poetry much more satisfying once they start building this toolkit - which usually takes years.
Importantly, these are not the basics/fundamentals of every poem, simply the basic or fundamental tools among which a poet can choose to use. Through experimentation, poets find which of these tools they want to experiment with and master, and which they don’t. I don’t experience that any poet is a master of all (maybe even most) poetic techniques. Experienced poets usually have a few techniques that they play with a lot, and the rest are about average, but they are great at spotting when they are being used in a poem.
I built (and am still working on building) this out myself. I’ve read just about any poetic technique book I could find (list of some good ones at the end of this comment), and while there are brilliant discussions of some techniques, and even some solid lists, I never felt like the subject was handled exhaustively. What’s below is a subset - what I would consider “the basics:”
Prosody
* Sound
* Rhyme: End, Slant
* Alliteration
* Consonance/Sibilance
* Rhythm (Scansion)
* Feet
* Meter
Structure
* Verse (Line): End-Stop vs Enjambment
* Stanza
Meaning
* Subject
* Theme
Voice
* Point of View
* Register
Surprise
* Irony
* Juxtaposition
* Subversion
Books
A Poetry Handbook - Mary Oliver
Rules for the Dance - Mary Oliver
The Art of Voice - Tony Hoagland
Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft- Tony Hoagland
The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets - Ted Kooser

A very solid starting place is:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156724006/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i22

or:

https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Chicago-Writing-Editing-Publishing/dp/0226923061/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=poetry+for+poets&qid=1611997001&s=books&sr=1-6

They aren't exactly what you are looking for- but both have a lot of wisdom about the art form and describe the different forms of meter. They also describe the process of understanding the poem.

Mary Oliver has an excellent guide for writing poetry:

http://www.amazon.com/A-Poetry-Handbook-Mary-Oliver/dp/0156724006

Edit: Also, join workshops. You learn a lot by critiquing other people's work.