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Summary:
The Making of a Poem 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:
Back out of all this now too much for us, Back in a time made simply by the loss of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more than a house Upon a farm that is no more than a farm And in a town that is no more than a town.
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 The Making of a Poem 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. --Doug Thorpe
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Made My Life Easier
Customer Rating:
Wish I had this book years ago. Perfectly arranged by type of poem with helpful "At a Glace" pages that quickly explains the form of the poem. For instance, "The Vinanelle at a Glance" lists six basics that form the Villanelle. This book is invaluable for a student or a lover of poetic form. It is complete with classic and contemporary poems. Of course, the book is a Norton Anthology - who always publish quality books.
The Making of a Poem purchase
Customer Rating:
The product arrived in perfect condition within a matter of days. I would purchase from here again.
Fascinating
Customer Rating:
Being fairly new to poetry, I purchased this book as an introduction to poetic forms, and it does not disappoint. The authors have cultivated a fantastic guide to many of the more popular forms of the modern era, and a few less popular forms. I found the chapters on the Villanelle and on Blank Verse to alone be worth the minimal price tag. The descriptions are terse but wholly concise. The choices the authors made for examples are so perfect that this book could work simply as an anthology of great poems. It is not, though, an all-around introduction to poetry, meter is barely touched upon, and some lesser forms are not given mention, but as books on important poetic forms go, I could hardly recommend another.
Norton Anthology of Poetry Forms
Customer Rating:
Excellent book. All the poetic forms analyzed according to form, historical developed, and their modern application. Each chapter offers many examples, again from the past for the present. A great aid for both literary aficionados and writers.
Plenty of poems-very little instruction
Customer Rating:
If you are looking for teaching on the mechanics of different forms this book is about fives pages from being a door stop. Don't waste your money.
If all you need are examples of the different forms this is your book.
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