From the bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a
Professor comes this essential primer to reading poetry like a
professor that unlocks the keys to enjoying works from Lord Byron to the
Beatles.
No literary form is as admired and feared as poetry. Admired for its
lengthy pedigree--a line of poets extending back to a time before
recorded history--and a ubiquitous presence in virtually all cultures,
poetry is also revered for its great beauty and the powerful emotions it
evokes. But the form has also instilled trepidation in its many admirers
mainly because of a lack of familiarity and knowledge.
Poetry demands more from readers--intellectually, emotionally, and
spiritually--than other literary forms. Most of us started out loving
poetry because it filled our beloved children's books from Dr. Seuss to
Robert Louis Stevenson. Eventually, our reading shifted to prose and
later when we encountered poetry again, we had no recent experience to
make it feel familiar. But reading poetry doesn't need to be so
overwhelming. In an entertaining and engaging voice, Thomas C. Foster
shows readers how to overcome their fear of poetry and learn to enjoy it
once more.
From classic poets such as Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and
Edna St. Vincent Millay to later poets such as E.E. Cummings, Billy
Collins, and Seamus Heaney, How to Read Poetry Like a Professor
examines a wide array of poems and teaches readers:
- How to read a poem to understand its primary meaning.
- The different technical elements of poetry such as meter, diction,
rhyme, line structures, length, order, regularity, and how to learn to
see these elements as allies rather than adversaries.
- How to listen for a poem's secondary meaning by paying attention to
the echoes that the language of poetry summons up.
- How to hear the music in poems--and the poetry in songs!
With How to Read Poetry Like a Professor, readers can rediscover
poetry and reap its many rewards.
