false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172652355m/203838.jpg 203838 2 <I>The Making of a Poem</I> is among the best how-to-read-poetry titles. Edited by two of our greatest living poets, one Irish and female, the other American and male, it is both an exploration of poetic forms and an anthology. Eavan Boland and Mark Strand each offer an introduction and then give us a series of chapters devoted to particular verse forms--the sonnet, the ballad, the sestina, the villanelle, blank verse, the stanza--as well as a long section devoted to what they somewhat vaguely call shaping forms. This refers to poetic structures established not by a specific rhyme and/or metrical pattern but by content: the elegy, for example, or the pastoral or ode. The book then concludes with a section on open forms. Each chapter is conveniently subdivided, each topic simply defined: a single page gives "The Ballad at a Glance" (or, for that matter, the pantoum) as a quick overview of the form's structure. A page or two on the history of the form follows, along with a brief comment on "the contemporary context." Then a chronological anthology of poems demonstrates the particular form. In the sonnet's case, for instance, we are treated to 23 brilliantly chosen examples--everything from Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" to Seamus Heaney's "The Haw Lantern" to Mary Jo Salter's playful "Half a Double Sonnet." The section then concludes with another brief analysis of one example. In this spot, the villanelle features Elizabeth Bishop's classic heartbreaker, "One Art," and blank verse gives us far too brief a take on Robert Frost's tantalizing "Directive." Itself worth the price of admission, the poem begins: <blockquote> Back out of all this now too much for us,<br> Back in a time made simply by the loss<br> of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off<br> Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,<br> There is a house that is no more than a house<br> Upon a farm that is no more than a farm<br> And in a town that is no more than a town.<br> </blockquote> One can readily see both the advantages and the limitations of such a format: definitions are kept lean, at times approaching the sound bite, and the short sentences and brief paragraphs often seem designed for a readership more accustomed to journalism than to the complexities of Dante (see, for example, the one-page history of the sestina). All of this looks like an attempt to reach an audience of both college students and general readers. While more information might help (brief comments on why certain poems in the anthology are defined as odes, pastorals, or elegies, for example), the bottom line is that <I>The Making of a Poem</I> does an excellent job of taking the inexperienced reader inside the mystery of poetic form. In these terms the volume succeeds, giving us a way into the history of poetry, along with an excellent anthology as a starting point for a deeper exploration of the glories of the genre. <I>--Doug Thorpe</I> 127094 2000 The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms total:229|5:61|4:101|3:57|2:10|1:0| 229 900 353 19 5 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Tue Jul 07 09:37:38 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 06:55:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Sun Mar 15 08:33:51 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 15 08:34:40 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Wed Feb 04 06:26:15 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 04 06:28:02 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Tue Jul 28 22:49:52 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 20:35:22 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sat May 16 12:24:52 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 12:25:35 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Apr 22 19:38:19 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 19:38:19 -0700 2009 4 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 12 09:06:38 -0700 2007 Fri Jul 20 12:06:12 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Mar 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 13:14:38 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 06 10:30:27 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Wed Feb 28 00:48:21 -0800 2007 Wed Feb 28 00:49:08 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Jun 07 00:17:47 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 03 22:16:45 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 07 00:17:47 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Mar 22 23:42:00 -0700 2007 Wed Jan 09 07:48:06 -0800 2008
P.S.: Call me, Mark Strand. ]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 20 18:11:55 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 20 18:13:29 -0700 2008 ]]> 5 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Dec 10 12:23:25 -0800 2007 Mon Dec 10 22:00:23 -0800 2007 5 0 false false Fri Aug 10 11:02:15 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 10 11:05:09 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Wed Nov 14 11:26:19 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 14 11:26:47 -0800 2007 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Jan 20 07:15:23 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 20 07:16:00 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Fri Aug 10 11:05:04 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 10 11:05:19 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Sat Jul 19 19:54:01 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 19 19:54:47 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sun Jun 01 19:02:23 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 01 19:02:50 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Tue Nov 10 08:30:34 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 10 08:30:34 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=203838