Includes bibliographical references and index.

In The Art of Poetry, Shira Wolosky provides a dazzling introduction to an art whose emphasis on verbal music, wordplay, and dodging the merely literal makes it at once the most beguiling and most challenging of literary forms. A uniquely comprehensive, step-by-step introduction to poetic form, The Art of Poetry moves progressively from smaller units such as the word, line, and image, to larger features such as verse forms and voice. In fourteen engaging chapters, Wolosky explores in depth how poetry does what it does while offering brilliant readings of some of the finest lyric poetry in the English and American traditions. Both readers new to poetry and poetry veterans will be moved and enlightened as Wolosky interprets work by William Shakespeare, John Donne, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, and others. As the least literal form of creative writing, for many readers poetry is also the most cryptic. Shira Wolosky introduces the skills needed for reading poetry, working from the individual word, line and image to verse forms, voice, gender and metre. A uniquely comprehensive, step-by-step introduction to poetic form, The Art of Poetry moves progressively from smaller units such as the word, line, and image, to larger features such as verse forms and voice.In fourteen engaging, eloquently written chapters, Wolosky explores in depth how poetry works while offering brilliant readings of some of the finest lyric poetry in the English and American traditions. Both readers new to poetry and poetry veterans will be moved and enlightened as Wolosky interprets works by William Shakespeare, John Donne, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, and others. Featuring a comprehensive bibliography, a glossary of poetic terms, and a new appendix of suggestions for further reading, The Art of Poetry is a rich source of inspiration. Preface. 1. Word Choice. 2. Syntax and the Poetic Line. 3. Images: Simile and Metaphor. 4. Metaphor and the Sonnet. 5. The Sonnet. 6. Poetic Conventions. 7. More Verse Forms. 8. Personification. 9. Poetic Voice. 10. Gender and Poetic Voice. 11. Poetic Rhythm: Metric. 12. Poetic Rhythm: Sound and Rhyme. 13. Rhetoric: More Tropes. 14. Incomplete Figures and the Art of Reading. Appendix. Glossary. Bibliographical Backgrounds. Index of Poems. Index of Poets. Index of Terms and Topics.