Poetry: The Basics

POETRY THE BASICS How do I read a poem? Do I really understand poetry? This comprehensive guide demystifies the world of poetry, exploring poetic forms and traditions which can at first seem bewildering. Showing how any reader can gain more pleasure from poetry, it looks at the ways in which poetry interacts with the language we use in our everyday lives and explores how poems use language and form to create meaning. Drawing on examples ranging from Chaucer to children’s rhymes, Cole Porter to Carol Ann Duffy, and from around the English-speaking world, it looks at aspects including: • • • • • how technical aspects such as rhythm and measures work; how different tones of voice affect a poem; how poetic language relates to everyday language; how different types of poetry work, from sonnets to free verse; how the form and ‘space’ of a poem contribute to its meaning. Poetry: The Basics is an invaluable and easy-to-read guide for anyone wanting to get to grips with reading and writing poetry Jeffrey Wainwright is a poet and Professor of English at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. You may also be interested in the following Routledge Student Reference titles: LITERARY THEORY: THE BASICS HANS BERTENS POETRY: THE BASICS JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT SHAKESPEARE: THE BASICS SEAN MCEVOY THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO POSTMODERNISM EDITED BY STUART SIM THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO RUSSIAN LITERATURE EDITED BY NEIL CORNWELL POST-COLONIAL STUDIES: THE KEY CONCEPTS BILL ASHCROFT, GARETH GRIFFTHS AND HELEN TIFFIN FIFTY KEY CONTEMPORARY THINKERS JOHN LECHTE WHO’S WHO IN DICKENS DONALD HAWES WHO’S WHO IN SHAKESPEARE PETER QUENNELL AND HAMISH JOHNSON WHO’S WHO IN CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S WRITING EDITED BY JANE ELDRIDGE MILLER WHO’S WHO IN LESBIAN AND GAY WRITING GABRIELE GRIFFIN WHO’S WHO IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY WORLD POETRY EDITED BY MARK WILLHARDT AND ALAN MICHAEL PARKER WHO’S WHO OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY NOVELISTS TIM WOODS iii LANGUAGE: THE BASICS (SECOND EDITION) R.L.TRASK SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS DANIEL CHANDLER POETRY THE BASICS jeffrey wainwright LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2004 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2004 Jeffrey Wainwright All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including pho