Description
Book SynopsisThis book is about reading and studying poetry. Using fully-worked examples and complete poems wherever possible, it shows all the key elements of poetry ‘at work’ in poems|This book is about reading and studying poetry. Using fully-worked examples and complete poems wherever possible, it shows all the key elements of poetry ‘at work’ in poems
Trade ReviewPeter Barry's Reading poetry succeeds in the most difficult of tasks: it is at once introductory, sure to help novice students of poetry find their way through what may seem a bewildering maze of "poetic" features, and yet advanced enough to challenge the most sophisticated reader. It moves outward from the poetry building blocks - line, meter, image - to questions of poetry and visuality, poetry and space-time, poetry and theory. Commonsensical, wise, witty and open-minded, Reading poetry draws on an impressively wide set of examples, from Thomas Wyatt to such experimentalists as Tom Raworth. This wonderfully unpretentious book is a classic of its kind. Professor Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University -- .
Table of ContentsIntroduction: ‘One small step’
READING THE LINES
1 Meaning
2 Imagery
3 Diction
4 Metre
5 Form
READING BETWEEN THE LINES
6 Close and distant reading
7 Feeling and sentiment
8 Text and context
9 Poems and pictures
10 Sequences and clusters
READING BEYOND THE LINES
11 Place and time
12 Poetry with theory
13 Minimalism and micro-poetry
14 Concrete canticles
15 Textual genesis
End-note
List of poems discussed
Glossary
Further reading
Index
