Synopses & Reviews
Breaking barriers and cultivating a lifelong love of poetry, this practical guide to reading poetry is set up to provide a background in analyzing poems, applying literary theory, forming opinions and offers approaches to discussing and writing about poetry. The volume teaches readers how a writer works so that they can feel more comfortable reading poems. The author examines survivalist poetics, how readers and writers work, literary criticism, how a poem is built; metaphor, symbol, and point of view, sound and the poem, shaping the currents of poetry, reading a poem, writers on writing, and provides poems for further reading. For those looking for an accessible introduction to poetry.
Synopsis
AN INTRODUCTION TO POETRY: THE RIVER SINGS by Jeff Knorr provides readers and teachers of poetry with a book that explores the poem, its parts, and ways of reading a poem in a practical manner. The poems included in this slim guide become living texts for students to study the key elements of poetry and to enhance their critical reading strategies.
An excellent text or supplement for introduction to poetry, introduction to literature, and creative writing.
About the Author
Jeff Knorr is the author of two collections of poetry, STANDING UP TO THE DAY and WESTERN REACH. He is also the co-author of MOORING AGAINST THE TIDE: WRITING POETRY AND FICTION (Prentice Hall), the co-editor of A WRITERS COUNTRY (Prentice Hall), and the author of AN INTRODUCTION TO POETRY: THE RIVER SINGS (Prentice Hall). He was the founding co-editor and poetry editor of the Clackamas Review, Red Rock Review, and Oxford Magazine, as well as others. Jeff Knorr currently lives in California's central valley and teaches literature and writing at Sacramento City College.
Table of Contents
1. Survivalist Poetics.
Green Chile, Jimmy Santiago Baca. Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota, James Wright.
2. How Readers Work, How Writers Work.
Oranges, Gary Soto. Cups of Jade, Huang Pien. Axe Handles, Gary Snyder. March Walk, Jim Harrison.
3. Literary Criticism: Critical Approaches to Meeting a Poem.
Marks, Linda Pastan. What Work Is, Philip Levine. Blink Your Eyes, Sekou Sundiata. Poems for the Young White Man . . ., Lorna Dee Cervantes.
4. How a Poem Is Built; Metaphor, Symbol, and Point of View.
Harlem (A Dream Deferred), Langston Hughes. a woman is not a potted plant, Alice Walker. Traveling Through the Dark, William Stafford. Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden.
5. Sound and the Poem: Can You Hear It?
Woodchucks, Maxine Kumin. The Crabs, Richmond Lattimore. My Papa's Waltz, Theodore Roethke.
6. Fixed Forms: Shaping the Currents of Poetry.
From Ten Sonnets, Sir Thomas Wyatt. The Funeral, Donald Hall. One Art, Elizabeth Bishop. From Narrow Road to the Interior (two haiku Matsuo Basho. School's Ugliest Girl Dies, Albert Garcia.
7. Reading a Poem: From Page to Mouth to Ear.
Homage to My Hips, Lucille Clifton. No Longer Mourn for Me, William Shakespeare. A Poem for “Magic,” Guincy Troupe.
8. Writers on Writing: Some Thoughts about Poetry.
9. Poems for Further Reading.
Snow-Flakes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, Christopher Marlowe. The Pasture, Robert Frost. Birches, Robert Frost. Because I Could Not Stop for Death, Emily Dickinson. I Think I Could Turn and Live with Animals, Walt Whitman. Man and Dog on an Early Winter Morning, Carl Sandburg. Killers, Carl Sandburg. A Woman, Gabriela Mistral. Time Does Not Bring Relief; You All Have Lied, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Sonnet 14 If thou must love me . . ., Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In Which She Satisfies a Fear with the Rhetoric of Tears, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Manley Hot Springs, Alaska, 1975, Lisa Chavez. Daystar, Rita Dove. Crossing the Water, Sylvia Plath. The Colonel, Carolyn Forche. The Movies, Florence Kiper Frank. Vandal's Moon, Virgil Suarez. Remember, Joy Harjo. Uncertain Admission, Frances Bazil. Spring and All, William Carlos Williams. A Blessing, James Wright. Song, Laetetia Elizabeth Landon. The Dreaming Child, Felicia Dorothea Hemans. To the Nightingale, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea. To Tranquility, Charlotte Smith. Evening, Charlotte Smith. Verses Written in a Garden, Lady Mary Wortley Montague. Annabel Lee, Edgar Allen Poe. To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne Bradstreet. Sonnet 29: When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes, William Shakespeare. On Being Brought From Africa to America, Phillis Wheatley. Sonnets from the Portuguese: Number 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She's Free, Frances E. Harper. The Poplar Field, William Cowper. Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold. A Psalm of Life, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mide Songs, Frances Densmore. My Love Has Departed, Love Song, Song on Applying War Paint, Song After Battle, Frances Densmore. Yuman and Yaqui Songs, Frances Densmore. The City Dead House, Walt Whitman. The Fiddler of Dooney, W. B. Yeats. The Tavern, Edwin Arlington Robinson, A Deposition from Love, Thomas Carew. The Song of the Foot-Track, Elsie Cole. Cradle Song, Louise Esson. Homesick, Dorothy Frances McCrae. The New Life, Witter Bynner. A Winter Ride, Amy Lowell.
Credits.
Glossary.