Reading Poetry
How to Read a Poem by ISBN: 0151004196Publication Date: 1999-03-22"Read a poem to yourself in the middle of the night. Turn on a single lamp and read it while you're alone in an otherwise dark room or while someone sleeps next to you. Say it over to yourself in a place where silence reigns and the din of culture-the constant buzzing noise that surrounds you-has momentarily stopped."
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Understanding Poetry
An Exaltation of Forms by ISBN: 0472097253Publication Date: 2002-02-20The editors invited over fifty contemporary poets to select a poetic meter, stanza, or form, describe it, recount its history, and provide favorite examples. The essays represent a remarkably diverse range of literary styles and approaches, and show how the forms of contemporary English-language poetry derive from a wealth of different traditions. The forms range from hendecasyllabics to prose poetry, haiku to procedural poetry, sonnets to blues, rap to fractal verse.
Rhyme's Reason by ISBN: 0300043066Publication Date: 1989-09-10Poems by the author complement a guide to writing English verse, surveying the forms and patterns of Old English and looking at an assortment of contemporary styles of free verse.
Articles on Reading Poetry
- How to Read a Poem. By Edward Hirsch"Reading poetry well is part attitude and part technique".
- Reading a Poem: 20 Strategies. A guide for the perplexed. By Mark Yakich"The experience of reading a poem itself is as likely to turn us off, intellectually or emotionally, as it is to move us." From The Atlantic.
- How to Read and Talk About Poetry. By Jessica FlynnFrom the National Endowment for the Art Blog.
- How to read poetry like a professor. By Thomas FosterAn ex-literature professor and author, explains how to get the most out of poems while avoiding intimidation. From The Guardian.
- How to Recognize a Poem When You See One. By Stanley Fish"not only for the meanings a poem might be said to have but for the fact of its being recognized as a poem in the first place"
Popular Books on Poetry
Check out the following titles from your public library or place an interlibrary loan request.
- 52 ways of looking at a poem, or, How reading modern poetry can change your life. By Ruth PadelModern poetry is often represented as difficult or remote from most people's experience. This is a passionate attempt to introduce and examine all aspects of comtemporary poetry, from the intricacies of rhythm and rhyme to the choice of subject matter, and make it a familiar part of our lives.
- The Practice of Poetry. Edited by Robin Behn & ChaseTwichellWriting exercises from poets who teach. A distinctive collection of more than 90 effective poetry--writing exercises combined with corresponding essays to inspire writers of all levels.
- Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems. By Stephanie BurtAward-winning poet and literary critic Stephanie Burt offers an accessible introduction to the seemingly daunting task of reading, understanding, and appreciating poetry. Burt dispels preconceptions about poetry and explains how poems speak to one another--and how they can speak to our lives. She shows readers how to find more poems once they have some poems they like, and how to connect the poetry of the past to the poetry of the present.
Sonnet to Science, by Edgar Allen Poe
