Patterns of Poetry: An Encyclopedia of Forms

Rating:
Summary: An excellent second reference book
Review: It must be frustrating for an author such as Williams to have written a very good and useful book, only to have another author (Lewis Turco) become the standard reference. After you own Turco, then you should pick up Williams. Williams uses the traditional marks for meter; an advantage for some readers - others will find it less intuitive than Turco's notation.

What Williams provides that Turco does not is more information on the current use of the form. His introductory elements of poetic forms is short and limited to the topic at hand - poetic forms. His arrangement of forms provides a more useful structure to learn and understand forms; while Turco gives the forms in alphabetic order, Williams provides the following organization (in chapters): 1) fully defined traditional stanza patterns 2) Loosly defined traditional stanza patterns 3) Traditional poems of set length 4) Traditional froms of indefinite length 5) Nonspecific forms and formal elements 6) Variations on the stanzas 7) Variations on the poems

His appendices have fascinating material relating structural linguistics to prosody, some observations on line breaks and a glossary of terms.

In a classroom setting where teaching the forms as a basis for literary critique, I would reach first for Williams. For writing poetry in forms, I would reach first for Turco. The best solution is, obviously, to own both.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent second reference book
Review: It must be frustrating for an author such as Williams to have written a very good and useful book, only to have another author (Lewis Turco) become the standard reference. After you own Turco, then you should pick up Williams. Williams uses the traditional marks for meter; an advantage for some readers - others will find it less intuitive than Turco's notation.

What Williams provides that Turco does not is more information on the current use of the form. His introductory elements of poetic forms is short and limited to the topic at hand - poetic forms. His arrangement of forms provides a more useful structure to learn and understand forms; while Turco gives the forms in alphabetic order, Williams provides the following organization (in chapters): 1) fully defined traditional stanza patterns 2) Loosly defined traditional stanza patterns 3) Traditional poems of set length 4) Traditional froms of indefinite length 5) Nonspecific forms and formal elements 6) Variations on the stanzas 7) Variations on the poems

His appendices have fascinating material relating structural linguistics to prosody, some observations on line breaks and a glossary of terms.

In a classroom setting where teaching the forms as a basis for literary critique, I would reach first for Williams. For writing poetry in forms, I would reach first for Turco. The best solution is, obviously, to own both.

Rating:
Summary: great book of forms
Review: Turco's Book of Forms has pretty much become the standard encyclopedia of poetic forms. And for good reason. But you shouldn't overlook Williams' Patterns of Poetry which is just as good, and in some way superior. It's well written and Williams chooses great example poems, and he divides the book seven sections, three appendices, and a glossary, which makes the book very accessible for the reader. While I would never say not to get Turco's book, I do think that you should also add Patterns of Poetry to your library.