Sound and Form in Modern Poetry

by Harvey Gross, Robert McDowell

Why are poems important? What do people mean when they use the word prosody? How does a poem read and sound? How does a poem's shape--its form--help to create its meaning? Sound and Form in Modern Poetry provides useful answers to these questions for readers of poetry. Through careful attention to the poems of modern masters, the book offers an accessible guide to the way today's poems really work, and to the way they are linked in style to poems of earlier times.

Poet, critic, and editor Robert McDowell has updated this classic text in the light of the poetic and critical developments of the last three decades. Segments on Dickinson, Robinson, Frost, Jeffers, and Lowell, among other poets, have been greatly expanded, and Ashbery, Creeley, Ginsberg, Hall, Kees, Kumin, Levertov, Levine, O'Hara, Plath, Rich, Simpson, and Wilbur added, among others. The epilogue discusses a new generation of poets whose works will likely be read well into the next century-- among others, Thomas M. Disch, Rita Dove, Dana Gioia, Emily Grosholz, Mark Jarman, Molly Peacock, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, Timothy Steele, Mary Swander, and Marilyn Nelson Waniek.

Over the last ten years, the most inspiring topic of conversation and argument among poets and their readers has been the resurgence of narrative and traditional forms. The new Sound and Form in Modern Poetry is a seminal text in this discussion, examining not only this movement but all of the important developments (Dadaism, Surrealism, Imagism, Language Poetry, and the Confessional School) that have defined our poetry in the twentieth century and have set the stage for poetry's continued life in the twenty-first. The original Sound and Form in Modern Poetry enjoyed extensive classroom use as a text; the revised version promises to be even more accessible, and more essential, for years to come.

The late Harvey Gross was Professor of Comparative Literature, State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Robert McDowell is publisher and editor of Story Line Press, and is also poet, critic, translator, fiction writer, and essayist.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do I have to give this a star? Worthless, worthless, worthless. That star you see above my review is a negative star, a bizzaro star, a white dwarf infected with the cries of children with tuberculosis. Thomas Hardy would pee fire on this book. This book neither understands the words "sound," "form," "modern," or "poetry." The petty bad metaphor-peddler who "wrote" this "book" likes Ezra Pound, but Pound would pound this doodle's pancake. He would pound his hernia into a Vallejo. He would make an ampersand. Harvey would never open his eyes again except in the gorgeous light of a possible world without this book and without its memory.

Really, suck this book.

[Prisoner 071053 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ludicrously boring. Not even the beginning of an ear for meter.

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting with an initial introductory chapter on "Prosody as Rhythmic Cognition," which serves to the scene for this survey of the marriage of form and content in modern poetry, "Sound and Form in Modern Poetry" fulfills well its purpose of informing and entertaining its readers. And while no book of this limited length can pretend to be totally exhaustive of its subject, Harvey Gross's tome gives the reader a complete "taste" of the modern poets and their relation to rhyme and meter, that most intriguing of subjects. Useful to neophyte explorers of the subject as well as more serious purveyors of prosody, this book, while somewhat too methodical in parts, faithfully explores poetry in a manner which does justice to the melodious music of this most grand of literary arts. Two thumbs up!

[Matt Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this extensive study of prosody, Gross discusses down to the most minute details varying techniques that poets use to create rhythm. It's a highly informative read, especially if you want "elucidation of technical problems . . . that go beyond technique: to the sources of aesthetic effect." His acute knowledge of the arcane lends his opinions on the numerous poets he discusses the distinct air of objectivity. If I have a criticism--which, in fact, I do--I'd complain that he devotes too many pages lauding Eliot's celebrated ear, too few regarding content (not only with Eliot, but with other poets as well), if I thought anyone would listen.