Painless Poetry

by Mary Elizabeth M.Ed.

Reading and writing poetry as a class assignment can be a rewarding experience—especially when it’s approached in a spirit of fun. This book explains how poets use words imaginatively in rhymed and metered verse as well as free verse. Poems can be humorous or serious, long or very short, joyful or sad—and this instructive, yet fun-to-read book points the way toward composing and reading poems of all kinds. It’s filled with examples from Homer through today. All titles in Barron’s Painless Series are written especially for classroom use for middle-school students.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Writing

336 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Book2Dragon · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF
Despite the subtitle "If you think poetry is dull and difficult, open this book--and think again."
Reading this book would have made me hate poetry, in spite of myself.
Too many high falutin' words to describe all the ways to write poetry (not), who needs 'em?
catalexis, bradycatalexis, amphimacer, anapest, spondlee!!!!! Aaargh!
And one and a half pages to explain the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow." Really? A poem with 16 words-total.
Sorry, guess I'm just not an acadamian; decided to stop torturing myself.

[The other John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry is something I sort of grew into. When I was in school, it was a nuisance that kept turning up in Reading and English classes. The only poem I ever liked was "Jabberwocky". (Though somehow I managed to get bits of poems stuck in my memory.) The rest was boring confusion--iambic pentameters and all that. In my adult years, however, I grew to appreciate the poetic word as I let hymn lyrics and psalms sink into my heart and mind. So when I picked up this book as part of my homeschooling reading, I was delighted. "If you think poetry is dull and difficult," the cover claims, "open this book -- and think again!" I thought that if I only had this book in high school, I would have had a much higher opinion of poetry. Well, I then opened the book... and had to think again. The book isn't bad. You really should check it out. But while it's clear writing and light hearted illustrations do a good job of presenting the world of poetry, it is a textbook after all. Eventually Ms. Elizabeth gets to the iambic part and my eyes glazed over. Oh, well. I'm trusting that all the good poems packed into the book will help my kids get over all the analysis sections. And if not, well, I can always hope that they'll grow to appreciate poetry, just like I did.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm fairy biased, since this book was written by my mother, but I find it very useful when there's some bit of information about poetry that I don't know and want to find out. Even though I studied literature in college, there were many things in the book that I didn't know, and terms I'd never heard of. Thanks Mom!

[Swanny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd say this book is better for reference than for reading, which isn't bad. There's terms I learned and only a few things that really didn't seem right. I liked that there were exercises and potential answers given. I really appreciated how many poems were authored by female poets.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

getting ready for interpreting literature CLEP test!

[Whole And · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very informative book, with assignments and questions. Course like and fun.

[Bryan Spahr]

read for school in 7th grade