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How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse
From the bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes this essential primer to reading poetry like a professor that unlocks the keys to enjoying works from Lord Byron to the Beatles. No literary form is as admired and feared as poetry. Admired for its lengthy pedigree—a line of poets extending back to a time before recorded history—and a ubiquitous presence in virtually all cultures, poetry is also revered for its great beauty and the powerful emotions it evokes. But the form has also instilled trepidation in its many admirers mainly because of a lack of familiarity and knowledge.
Poetry demands more from readers—intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually—than other literary forms. Most of us started out loving poetry because it filled our beloved children's books from Dr. Seuss to Robert Louis Stevenson. Eventually, our reading shifted to prose and later when we encountered poetry again, we had no recent experience to make it feel familiar. But reading poetry doesn’t need to be so overwhelming. In an entertaining and engaging voice, Thomas C. Foster shows readers how to overcome their fear of poetry and learn to enjoy it once more. From classic poets such as Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to later poets such as E.E. Cummings, Billy Collins, and Seamus Heaney, How to Read Poetry Like a Professor examines a wide array of poems and teaches readers: With How to Read Poetry Like a Professor , readers can rediscover poetry and reap its many rewards.
Poetry demands more from readers—intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually—than other literary forms. Most of us started out loving poetry because it filled our beloved children's books from Dr. Seuss to Robert Louis Stevenson. Eventually, our reading shifted to prose and later when we encountered poetry again, we had no recent experience to make it feel familiar. But reading poetry doesn’t need to be so overwhelming. In an entertaining and engaging voice, Thomas C. Foster shows readers how to overcome their fear of poetry and learn to enjoy it once more. From classic poets such as Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to later poets such as E.E. Cummings, Billy Collins, and Seamus Heaney, How to Read Poetry Like a Professor examines a wide array of poems and teaches readers: With How to Read Poetry Like a Professor , readers can rediscover poetry and reap its many rewards.
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 27, 2018
342 people are currently reading
1881 people want to read
About the author
Thomas C. Foster
20 books366 followersThomas C. Foster is Professor of English at the University of Michigan, Flint, where he teaches classes in contemporary fiction, drama, and poetry as well as creative writing and composition. Foster has been teaching literature and writing since 1975, the last twenty-one years at the University of Michigan-Flint. He lives in East Lansing, Michigan.
In addition to How to Read Novels Like a Professor (Summer 2008) and How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003), both from HarperCollins, Foster is the author of Form and Society in Modern Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), Seamus Heaney (Twayne, 1989), and Understanding John Fowles(University of South Carolina Press, 1994). His novel The Professor's Daughter, is in progress.
Foster studied English at Dartmouth College and then Michigan State University, moving forward from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the twentieth in the process. His academic writing has concentrated on twentieth-century British, American, and Irish figures and movements—James Joyce, William Faulkner, Seamus Heaney, John Fowles, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, modernism and postmodernism. But he reads and teaches lots of other writers and periods: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Homer, Dickens, Hardy, Poe, Ibsen, Twain.
Author photograph courtesy of HarperCollins.
In addition to How to Read Novels Like a Professor (Summer 2008) and How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003), both from HarperCollins, Foster is the author of Form and Society in Modern Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), Seamus Heaney (Twayne, 1989), and Understanding John Fowles(University of South Carolina Press, 1994). His novel The Professor's Daughter, is in progress.
Foster studied English at Dartmouth College and then Michigan State University, moving forward from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the twentieth in the process. His academic writing has concentrated on twentieth-century British, American, and Irish figures and movements—James Joyce, William Faulkner, Seamus Heaney, John Fowles, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, modernism and postmodernism. But he reads and teaches lots of other writers and periods: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Homer, Dickens, Hardy, Poe, Ibsen, Twain.
Author photograph courtesy of HarperCollins.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
September 23, 2019
This book was exactly what I need to prepare myself for my 2019-2020 poetry project. All poetry vocabulary is defined with examples. The Who what where why how is answered. There is humor throughout so it's not dry. Loved it!
April 9, 2019
I've read all three of Dr. Foster's books. I do think he has done a great service in helping readers to better understand and enjoy literature. These books are mostly a light-hearted romp through, in some cases, the more difficult works of literature. I think his best book was his first one. The books that look at novels and poems are derivative of the first one.
The best book I've read that helps readers understand and appreciate literature is Donald Hall's To Read Literature. Dr. Foster does a good job, but Donald Hall's book is still the best of the best.
The best book I've read that helps readers understand and appreciate literature is Donald Hall's To Read Literature. Dr. Foster does a good job, but Donald Hall's book is still the best of the best.
June 20, 2019
Okay as a general introduction to poetry, but not as helpful as either his overview of literature of his book on novels.
October 19, 2020
I've been reading a little poetry for years. Recently I began reading a lot of poetry and I wanted to understand the structure and types of poetry better. This book has helped a lot, and it is written in a witty voice. Meter, Rhythm , Rhyme schemes, and many different types of poems and poets are covered.
March 17, 2019
I enjoy all of Foster's "how-to" books, since they are always inspirational for me, getting me to seek out more books to read (or movies to see, in the case of the Silver Screen book). I thought there were lots of useful tips for reading poetry early on in this book (read it aloud after a first pass-through; follow the sentence structure instead of the line structure to gain meaning; read a poem multiple times), but that kind of petered out in the second half, which was interesting enough to read, but not quite as relevant to the topic at hand. Overall, I would recommend this book for anyone seeking to get into lyric poetry, however, and it serves as a useful introduction to a literary genre that was never big, but is probably dying out even moreso in this day and age.
May 21, 2018
Thomas Foster teaches readers how to approach poetry to make it meaningful to them. He discusses the poem's sentence structure, encouraging readers to pause of punctuation as one would do in reading other literature. He discusses arrangement into stanzas, rhyme schemes, meter, repetition, and more. He eventually moves into symbolism and other topics which often scare students. He created a readable introduction to poetry, with limited technical jargon. While armchair poetry enthusiasts may be the most appreciative audience, non-majors taking literature classes with a fair amount of poetry will benefit. I received an uncorrected proof through LibraryThing Early Reviewers with the expectation of an unbiased review.
April 1, 2018
If you have read the other Foster books on literature and novels, then the set-up and arrangement of this newest title (March 2018) will not surprise you or disrupt the flow of your reading into the ideas presented.
Foster provides interesting commentary in the introduction that would be well-suited for the upper level grades as an re-introduction of sorts to poetry and poetic forms. Foster writes, "I think that for most people, however, is the matter isn't so much not liking poetry as feeling somehow overmatched, as if it were a contest and the other side had better equipment and more skill" (3). For the rest of the introduction, Foster presents poetry in its bare-bones form and puts the would-be poetry reader at ease for presenting what both bring to the table by way of text and reader.
In "Sounds of Sense" and "Sound Beyond Sense," Foster brings the reader gently back to poetry if the reader is patient with returning to some of that early learning in meter and rhyme and literary devices. For the upper grade reader, these elements of the book may serve well as have the other two books mentioned prior. Early on within this book, however, I note that that Foster is reserved in the examples used and they seem more accessible and familiar and I have to think that this is due in part to the potential fear and trepidation poetry brings along with it.
The rest of the book presents like the literature and novels with quippy titles followed by a short chapter which includes a definition of the term, and exploration of the term, and samples from the larger poetry community.
As more and more classroom teachers seek out nonfiction text for the classroom, this one would be very nice not only as a primer for poetry but as an informing vehicle for the sounds, techniques, and moves we seek in prose.
Foster provides interesting commentary in the introduction that would be well-suited for the upper level grades as an re-introduction of sorts to poetry and poetic forms. Foster writes, "I think that for most people, however, is the matter isn't so much not liking poetry as feeling somehow overmatched, as if it were a contest and the other side had better equipment and more skill" (3). For the rest of the introduction, Foster presents poetry in its bare-bones form and puts the would-be poetry reader at ease for presenting what both bring to the table by way of text and reader.
In "Sounds of Sense" and "Sound Beyond Sense," Foster brings the reader gently back to poetry if the reader is patient with returning to some of that early learning in meter and rhyme and literary devices. For the upper grade reader, these elements of the book may serve well as have the other two books mentioned prior. Early on within this book, however, I note that that Foster is reserved in the examples used and they seem more accessible and familiar and I have to think that this is due in part to the potential fear and trepidation poetry brings along with it.
The rest of the book presents like the literature and novels with quippy titles followed by a short chapter which includes a definition of the term, and exploration of the term, and samples from the larger poetry community.
As more and more classroom teachers seek out nonfiction text for the classroom, this one would be very nice not only as a primer for poetry but as an informing vehicle for the sounds, techniques, and moves we seek in prose.
January 23, 2021
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
TL;DR REVIEW:
How to Read Poetry Like a Professor is fun, helpful, and the perfect book to help you start to read poetry more deeply.
For you if: Want to read more poetry but feel like you don’t know how it works.
FULL REVIEW:
I read a lot, but I didn’t study English or literature in college. I always felt like I was missing the tools to read deeply, to pick up on nuances and meaning. So a few years ago, I read Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, and I loved it. It was exactly what I was looking for. So this time around, when I wanted to read more poetry but I wasn’t sure how to even approach a poem at anything deeper than surface level, I turned to him again. How to Read Poetry Like a Professor was, once again, exactly what I was looking for.
In his signature witty, wisecracking, approachable voice, Foster introduces us to the different elements that make poetry poetry. Things like line breaks, and the sounds in the words, and rhythm. All things I knew were important, but I’d never learned to interpret. This was a great introduction that was both fun and helpful!
I do wish that he’d pulled in more examples that came from modern poets rather than classics (lots of old white dudes in there), but ultimately this book ended up being the perfect starter on my poetry journey. Now I find myself actively wanting to read more poetry. (As a first step, I subscribed to a few poem-of-the-day newsletters and followed some Instagram accounts.) Next, to keep learning, I think I’m going to read Don’t Read Poetry by Stephanie Burt!
TL;DR REVIEW:
How to Read Poetry Like a Professor is fun, helpful, and the perfect book to help you start to read poetry more deeply.
For you if: Want to read more poetry but feel like you don’t know how it works.
FULL REVIEW:
I read a lot, but I didn’t study English or literature in college. I always felt like I was missing the tools to read deeply, to pick up on nuances and meaning. So a few years ago, I read Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, and I loved it. It was exactly what I was looking for. So this time around, when I wanted to read more poetry but I wasn’t sure how to even approach a poem at anything deeper than surface level, I turned to him again. How to Read Poetry Like a Professor was, once again, exactly what I was looking for.
In his signature witty, wisecracking, approachable voice, Foster introduces us to the different elements that make poetry poetry. Things like line breaks, and the sounds in the words, and rhythm. All things I knew were important, but I’d never learned to interpret. This was a great introduction that was both fun and helpful!
I do wish that he’d pulled in more examples that came from modern poets rather than classics (lots of old white dudes in there), but ultimately this book ended up being the perfect starter on my poetry journey. Now I find myself actively wanting to read more poetry. (As a first step, I subscribed to a few poem-of-the-day newsletters and followed some Instagram accounts.) Next, to keep learning, I think I’m going to read Don’t Read Poetry by Stephanie Burt!
April 23, 2018
Thomas Foster makes a valiant attempt to make poetry accessible to those who do not read it often or find it elusive. The two take-aways I value are: read a poem according to its punctuation and not just to the end of the line (this really does help the poem make sense), and read a poem aloud.
This is simple advice that makes a difference in flow and comprehension, but Mr. Foster still got caught up a bit too much in technicalities that perhaps are more important for the poet to understand rather than the reader. He does include quite a few examples which clarifies much, so overall this is helpful, but perhaps did not turn me into an avid poetry reader at this time.
This is simple advice that makes a difference in flow and comprehension, but Mr. Foster still got caught up a bit too much in technicalities that perhaps are more important for the poet to understand rather than the reader. He does include quite a few examples which clarifies much, so overall this is helpful, but perhaps did not turn me into an avid poetry reader at this time.
December 12, 2021
Foster can get a little too cutesy at times, but overall this is a good overview of the elements of poetry. I do think the title is a bit misleading -- a better one might be How to Identify Significant Parts of Poetry Like a Professor, as Foster offers you a walkthrough of the tools in a poetic toolbox, but he doesn't necessarily give you the instructions to use those tools to then build something on your own. i.e. I don't know if it necessarily teaches you how to read poems, per se, but rather appreciate them for their elements.
May 1, 2018
This book has been written before. And better. I suppose this is a fine manual for English undergrad students. But even the selections Foster choses as examples are those we have read many times before ("Because I could not stop for Death," "Birches," "Jabberwocky," "The Road Not Taken").
April 19, 2023
I've learned about poetry from this book more than I did ever learn in school poetry courses.
AND I'M AN ENGLISH GRADUATE.
AND I'M AN ENGLISH GRADUATE.
August 16, 2022
Having read Foster's other books on how to read literature, novels, nonfiction, and 25 books that shaped America, I thought I might as well read this one, too. It's a slimmer volume than the others, and not as enjoyable. At least not for me. Perhaps that is because he spent more time on modern poets and less time on the classic poets than I had expected.
As usual, his wit is in full flower. That I think is one of the best parts of his books; he wears his erudition lightly, and he recognizes that people are often intimidated by literature (and especially by poetry), so he keeps it light and fun while he teaches. I don't know how he was in the classroom, but if he taught the way he writes he must have been a popular professor.
The book deals more with the mechanics than the meaning of poetry, although he does go into detail about what certain poems mean (or at least, mean to him; as he notes, your experience may vary). Thus he deals at length with alliteration, consonance, and assonance; with scansion and the various metrical feet and line length; with rhythm and meter. He also explains the difference between blank verse and free verse, and explores various rhyming schemes, some of which can be complicated. Finally, he explains the different types of poetry: lyric, odes, sonnets, haiku, and other more obscure forms.
Having read that last paragraph, do you see why it would be helpful to have a funny guide to all this, especially if you did not major in English in college, or you do not read much poetry? One of his emphases that I really appreciate is his insistence that poetry must be read aloud; you have to hear the rhythm and rhyme and all the structural elements of the poem.
Some of the book can get very technical, and the eyes start to glaze over. But if that impels you to put down the book and pick up a book of poetry, I think Foster would be well pleased.
As usual, his wit is in full flower. That I think is one of the best parts of his books; he wears his erudition lightly, and he recognizes that people are often intimidated by literature (and especially by poetry), so he keeps it light and fun while he teaches. I don't know how he was in the classroom, but if he taught the way he writes he must have been a popular professor.
The book deals more with the mechanics than the meaning of poetry, although he does go into detail about what certain poems mean (or at least, mean to him; as he notes, your experience may vary). Thus he deals at length with alliteration, consonance, and assonance; with scansion and the various metrical feet and line length; with rhythm and meter. He also explains the difference between blank verse and free verse, and explores various rhyming schemes, some of which can be complicated. Finally, he explains the different types of poetry: lyric, odes, sonnets, haiku, and other more obscure forms.
Having read that last paragraph, do you see why it would be helpful to have a funny guide to all this, especially if you did not major in English in college, or you do not read much poetry? One of his emphases that I really appreciate is his insistence that poetry must be read aloud; you have to hear the rhythm and rhyme and all the structural elements of the poem.
Some of the book can get very technical, and the eyes start to glaze over. But if that impels you to put down the book and pick up a book of poetry, I think Foster would be well pleased.
October 4, 2018
I have enjoyed two other of Foster's book and even use one in my college-level Literature Appreciation class. I read this book and was hoping that I could employ it to help my students better understand poetry and learn to appreciate and enjoy it. While I am well educated in literature and writing and have even written a few award winning poems, I have to say that I wasn't as pleased with this book as I have been with the others I have read.
Foster's wit and humor conveys the idea that there is some much that is complicated about poetry and that understanding it can be very hard. He makes lots of jokes and jabs that are humorous and attempt to disarm the complicated alarm set over poetry. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he is only mildly successful. The complications are still there and while he does break it down a bit, it still really doesn't do much to encourage the appreciation of poetry for the average person/student.
There are only a few chapters in this book that I might find usable in my Lit Apprec course. I'm disappointed but such is life. The complications of poetry are a bit like math and this can be discouraging to those who just want to appreciate the answer/solution to the math problem rather than being compelled to learn all the steps in working out a complicated math equation. The beauty of an answer can be appreciated just like a the beauty of a poem without needing to understand every step of the solution/creation. I wish Foster would have included a chapter surround this idea.
There is much that is good here for more advanced readers and I would even say that this might be a usable text for a class singularly focused on understanding poetry in a technical sense.
It is a good book, just not what I was hoping for this time.
Foster's wit and humor conveys the idea that there is some much that is complicated about poetry and that understanding it can be very hard. He makes lots of jokes and jabs that are humorous and attempt to disarm the complicated alarm set over poetry. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he is only mildly successful. The complications are still there and while he does break it down a bit, it still really doesn't do much to encourage the appreciation of poetry for the average person/student.
There are only a few chapters in this book that I might find usable in my Lit Apprec course. I'm disappointed but such is life. The complications of poetry are a bit like math and this can be discouraging to those who just want to appreciate the answer/solution to the math problem rather than being compelled to learn all the steps in working out a complicated math equation. The beauty of an answer can be appreciated just like a the beauty of a poem without needing to understand every step of the solution/creation. I wish Foster would have included a chapter surround this idea.
There is much that is good here for more advanced readers and I would even say that this might be a usable text for a class singularly focused on understanding poetry in a technical sense.
It is a good book, just not what I was hoping for this time.
February 23, 2019
This is the book I wanted and needed to read, though I did not know that when I found it on a best-of list and put a hold on it at our library.
I committed to reading poetry more than 2+ years ago now but I had not had any type of formal poetry education since a one semester elective course in my junior year at university. Prior to that, there were a couple of weeks of learning to read and write poetry in 7th grade english where I famously wrote a haiku about love that my teacher thought was outstanding. Perhaps it was this that has led me all these years later to want to really learn and read more.
Professor Foster's book is entertaining and humorous but it was also serious and I learned topics over again that I had forgotten and I learned much that was new to me. Now that I have finished, I feel less intimidated by the poems I am reading and more aware of what a poem is and does.
The two chapters that stood out for me were Chapter 5, The Long (or short) Gray Line about line length and line breaks and Chapter 6, Our Word is Our Bond which is about word choice or poetic diction. I think more than any areas of this book, these two chapters gave me real insight into the construction of and how to read poetry.
I would have liked that he spend more time on modernist poetry (there is a chapter at the end but not enough, in my opinion) but there were still examples spread throughout the book that he used to illustrate the topics of each of his chapters.
There were also many examples of poems and poetry books by authors I have not read and have put on my TBR list for the future including William Carlos Williams' Sour Grapes, Danusha Lameris' The Moons of August, Marianne Moore's poetry, and Christina Rossetii's poetry.
This is just an excellent little book for a novice poetry reader like myself. A 5-star seal of approval from me.
I committed to reading poetry more than 2+ years ago now but I had not had any type of formal poetry education since a one semester elective course in my junior year at university. Prior to that, there were a couple of weeks of learning to read and write poetry in 7th grade english where I famously wrote a haiku about love that my teacher thought was outstanding. Perhaps it was this that has led me all these years later to want to really learn and read more.
Professor Foster's book is entertaining and humorous but it was also serious and I learned topics over again that I had forgotten and I learned much that was new to me. Now that I have finished, I feel less intimidated by the poems I am reading and more aware of what a poem is and does.
The two chapters that stood out for me were Chapter 5, The Long (or short) Gray Line about line length and line breaks and Chapter 6, Our Word is Our Bond which is about word choice or poetic diction. I think more than any areas of this book, these two chapters gave me real insight into the construction of and how to read poetry.
I would have liked that he spend more time on modernist poetry (there is a chapter at the end but not enough, in my opinion) but there were still examples spread throughout the book that he used to illustrate the topics of each of his chapters.
There were also many examples of poems and poetry books by authors I have not read and have put on my TBR list for the future including William Carlos Williams' Sour Grapes, Danusha Lameris' The Moons of August, Marianne Moore's poetry, and Christina Rossetii's poetry.
This is just an excellent little book for a novice poetry reader like myself. A 5-star seal of approval from me.
October 12, 2023
Fun, not quite as engaging as How To Read Literature Like a Professor, but it's as much of a page-turner as it can be given the subject matter. Definitely skims along and captures a few of the major aspects of poetic history while providing a handful of practical tools for closely reading poetry.
I think that trying to truly give the reader everything they need to fulfill the title's promise would become a cumbersome slog, so Foster errs on the side of concise and engaging. Probably smart, but it left me wanting more. Luckily, he provides a lengthy list of recommended further reading at the end.
I think that trying to truly give the reader everything they need to fulfill the title's promise would become a cumbersome slog, so Foster errs on the side of concise and engaging. Probably smart, but it left me wanting more. Luckily, he provides a lengthy list of recommended further reading at the end.
December 26, 2024
I found this book frustrating. I enjoy some poetry and was looking to learn more about how to decipher some meaning out of poems that seem to make no sense. I'm not an idiot and I am well-read so why don't I "get" poetry?
80% of the book is about the technicalities of poetry: the iambs, trochees, how many lines are in a sonnet, rhyming schemes, what is a villanelle, etc.
The very last section finally discusses why certain authors use specific words and phrases and how they may and sometimes may not allude to other ideas.
If you are taking Poetry 101 in college this would be helpful. To me, not so much.
80% of the book is about the technicalities of poetry: the iambs, trochees, how many lines are in a sonnet, rhyming schemes, what is a villanelle, etc.
The very last section finally discusses why certain authors use specific words and phrases and how they may and sometimes may not allude to other ideas.
If you are taking Poetry 101 in college this would be helpful. To me, not so much.
April 18, 2024
I'd actually like to give this 3.5 stars and let this be my submission to the ongoing "we want half stars" battle with Goodreads.
This was my TTPD preparation and I do feel like I learned a thing or two. I just really had to push through with reading it— hard for my mind to follow only because of all the technicalities of poetry. I still think Foster did his darnedest to make the chapters interesting and comical. I read his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor years ago and fell in love with it.
Might give this one another read some time after I've explored more poetry.
This was my TTPD preparation and I do feel like I learned a thing or two. I just really had to push through with reading it— hard for my mind to follow only because of all the technicalities of poetry. I still think Foster did his darnedest to make the chapters interesting and comical. I read his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor years ago and fell in love with it.
Might give this one another read some time after I've explored more poetry.
March 6, 2019
A great refresher on all those things I learned and forgot in high school. Now ready to read some poetry with more of an eye for language and form instead of confusion!
December 2, 2019
Sorts out the nitty-gritty of poetry and explains it in a light, often humorous yet very expert voice. Exactly what I was hoping for out of this book.
Read
August 4, 2023An alright book for learning about poetry. Seemed a little stretched out with a lot of repeated discussions on the same topics and tangents that didn’t add anything. About 50 pages worth of content in a 187 page book. Despite the unneeded filler, I did learn a good bit about the basics of approaching poetry and will have some confidence in tackling my first poems.
Read
May 20, 2024mr foster we meet again...
July 5, 2019
Excellent! Very accessible. Now I have to get cracking on reading poetry to apply all that I have just learned.
December 2, 2019
Love these series of books.
September 1, 2018
Yet again, Foster has been able to explain elements of literature that confuse students, or at the least deter them, in a way that makes learning fun and entertaining. I also really enjoyed the examples he selected. I will be using this with my students this year and I am thankful for his humor.
April 15, 2018
My English teacher during High School:
In the next few months, we are going to study poetry.
The mere of sight of poetry sent me into a cave, a cave, I knew a little too well during my sophomore year in high school. What did I think about poetry? When I first encountered poetry, I found it to be a drag, convoluted, confusing, and boring. During my sophomore year in college, I had a rewaking, one which included reading 100's of books and among those books were the plays of Shakespeare, a poet I have grown very fond of. NOW, I kind of really like poetry. I recently took a course were we read poem after poem deciphering each one like a detective who's attempting to figure out a murder. I just finished "How To Read Poetry Like A Professor" a book that explains the intricacies of poetry. The book covers sonnets, rhyme, Images, symbols, haiku and free verse. If you want to learn about poetry and it's magical powers this book is worthwhile. This is a book you don't necessarily need to read from beginning to end like a novel rather you can read it on the topic that most interest you.
In the next few months, we are going to study poetry.
The mere of sight of poetry sent me into a cave, a cave, I knew a little too well during my sophomore year in high school. What did I think about poetry? When I first encountered poetry, I found it to be a drag, convoluted, confusing, and boring. During my sophomore year in college, I had a rewaking, one which included reading 100's of books and among those books were the plays of Shakespeare, a poet I have grown very fond of. NOW, I kind of really like poetry. I recently took a course were we read poem after poem deciphering each one like a detective who's attempting to figure out a murder. I just finished "How To Read Poetry Like A Professor" a book that explains the intricacies of poetry. The book covers sonnets, rhyme, Images, symbols, haiku and free verse. If you want to learn about poetry and it's magical powers this book is worthwhile. This is a book you don't necessarily need to read from beginning to end like a novel rather you can read it on the topic that most interest you.
December 25, 2018
I thought this book was absolutely brilliant while I was reading it! For my summer reading this past summer I read How to Read Literature Like a Professor for my AP literature class and I enjoyed it a lot. I learned about the craft of literary analysis while also feeling like I took away a lot about writing too. That's how I felt about this books as well. I write poetry for fun and reading this book was fun seeing the different techniques used to write poetry as well as how to recognize these different techniques. I feel like I will definitely be coming back to this book some time soon and will probably enjoy it just as much because I'll have learned even more that second time!
There were points in this book that made me feel like I could never achieve excellence like the masters, but there was one section about awful poems and how not every poem was perfect and that gave me some hope for my own future writing. And with writing I think I'll be able to better get into the mind of a writer and better analyze different poetry (which is the original meaning of buying and reading this book haha).
There were points in this book that made me feel like I could never achieve excellence like the masters, but there was one section about awful poems and how not every poem was perfect and that gave me some hope for my own future writing. And with writing I think I'll be able to better get into the mind of a writer and better analyze different poetry (which is the original meaning of buying and reading this book haha).
June 18, 2018
As another reviewer said, this book has indeed been written before, and better. Foster, in an effort to be true to his brand, I imagine, spends too much time trying to deliver on the "quippy," resulting in a book that, while approachable and at least somewhat instructive, will do little to actually develop one's appreciation for poetry. Which presumably is the reason someone comes to this kind of book in the first place -- to better enjoy poetry, not just to be able to rattle off the names of different types of poems.
If you're short on time and have zero knowledge of poetry, I suppose this is an acceptable place to start. But don't expect it to make the subject come alive for you. For that you're much better off with a book like Frances Mayes' The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems.
If you're short on time and have zero knowledge of poetry, I suppose this is an acceptable place to start. But don't expect it to make the subject come alive for you. For that you're much better off with a book like Frances Mayes' The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems.
June 9, 2018
As someone interested in poetry, but no more of an introduction than that one gets in a high school class, I found this book to be quite thorough and readable. Because of it, I was also introduced to some newer poets. The conclusion provided a lovely ending with its beautiful prose.
I highly recommend this to anyone needing a brush up on terms or introduction to poetry. I received this copy through a Goodreads Giveaway.
I highly recommend this to anyone needing a brush up on terms or introduction to poetry. I received this copy through a Goodreads Giveaway.
January 30, 2018
I won this copy in a Goodreads Giveaway!
I loved, loved, loved this! I learned so much and I giggled through most of it. What a fun way to learn about poetry! I wanted to get better at understanding the poetry that I am reading and this book certainly helped me to do that!
I loved, loved, loved this! I learned so much and I giggled through most of it. What a fun way to learn about poetry! I wanted to get better at understanding the poetry that I am reading and this book certainly helped me to do that!
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