“A poem’s truth is like a ghost,” Jim Walker writes. “It is transparent and invisible.” A roadmap to the invisible is tough to conjure, but that’s what Walker and co-author Mark Shaw have done in Poetry Report: Creative Ideas and Publishing Strategies for Aspiring Poets (Books for Life Foundation, 2004, $17.95).

Tool box, teacher, trigger, companion: Poetry Report packs a lot of function into 215 pages. Written in short, active sentences, the book acts like jumper cables for nascent and rusty poets who need a firm push.

Walker aces the challenge of both deconstructing the aesthetic judgments of the poetic crafting process and maintaining poetry’s mystique, or invisibility. His view of poetry is democratic, street-wise and anthrophilic: all senses, people, objects and places are fair game.

One of my favorite writing triggers in the book: “Try jotting down all of the written language you see in your local bowling alley.” Walker nudges readers out on the street to seek poetic subject matter, using the metaphor of framing vision-specific snapshots that become poems.

The second portion of the book explores the discipline and guts required to try getting your creative writing published: submitting to journals, writing query letters and book proposals, copyright and more.

It’s easy to feel lectured at with any how-to book; Poetry Report keeps its advice thankfully curt. And while there is no shortage of books on getting published, Poetry Report is handy since it wraps both writing and publishing into one tight wad. If you have even a twinge of desire to try writing poetry, pick up this book.

Jim Walker, who is NUVO’s news editor and photography editor, will be a featured reader at United States of Mind’s regular Friday open-mic night April 30 at 9:30 p.m. He’ll be reading along with slides and music. USOM is located at 40th and Boulevard (291 W. 40th St.). The event is free. May 1 from 2-4 p.m. he’ll be appearing with Mark Shaw for a booksigning and mini-seminar at the Fountain Square Library branch.