An Introduction to English Poetry

Rating:
Summary: A great little book
Review: Why hasn't a book like this been written before?

Short, thought-provoking, and humorous, it tells you just about everything you need to know about how to write a poem in English. The author realizes that this skill cannot be taught, so he contents himself with giving examples and explaining the rules. Very good explanations of metrical feet and the concept of a stanza. I wonder how I managed to miss all this information while I was getting an M.A. in English literature! :-0

Well, actually, that's no mystery at all. I specialized in Yeats, Pound, and Eliot, and Yeats was the only one of those three who thought that rhyme and meter mattered. Pound and Eliot were the master rebels, taking twentieth-century poetry into the "daring" realm of "free verse." As a result of their revolution, even WANTING to know what an iamb or a trochee was --- oh, that became very old-fashioned, and not at all in the swim.

But now, in the twenty-first century, the great wheel of fortune revolves again. At the very least, everyone studying English literature should now realize one very basic fact: mankind lived for thousands and thousands of years without writing. During those years, EVERYTHING had to be memorized. Or the knowledge vanished! During those long long years, people discovered that meter and rhyme helped them remember things: this was the invention of VERSE.

If you ever wonder about those irritating advertising jingles or popular tunes that "find their way into your head" and refuse to go away -- well, you've just had a demonstration of this principle. "Double your pleasure, double your fun, with double-good, double-good Doublemint gum" -- hey, the copywriters made it rhyme (almost) and it certainly has a "jingle" in the meter.

So: lesson number one is that rhyme and meter make your writing more memorable.

Now, what kind of poet would give up the use of such tools?

Highest recommendation!