Description
Book SynopsisFrom the widely acclaimed poet, novelist, critic, and scholar, a lucid and edifying exploration of the building blocks of poetry and how they''ve been used over the centuries to assemble the most imperishable poems.
“Anyone wanting to learn how to remodel, restore, or build a poem from the foundation up, will find this room-by-room guide on the architecture of poetry a warm companion.” —Tomás Q. Morín, author of MacheteWe treasure our greatest poetry, Brad Leithauser reminds us in these pages, not for its
what but its
how. In chapters on everything from iambic pentameter to how stanzas are put together to rhyme and the way we really talk, Leithauser takes a deep dive into that
how—the very architecture of poetry. He explains how meter and rhyme work in fruitful opposition (Meter is prospective; rhyme is retrospective); how the weirdnesses of spelling in English are a boon to the poet; why an off rhy
