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The Point of Poetry
What's the point of poetry? It's a question asked in classrooms all over the world, but it rarely receives a satisfactory answer. Which is why so many people, who read all kinds of books, never read poetry after leaving school. Exploring twenty-two works from poets as varied as William Blake, Seamus Heaney, Rita Dove and Hollie McNish, this book makes the case for what poetry has to offer us, what it can tell us about the things that matter in life.
Each poem is discussed with humour and refreshing clarity, using a mixture of anecdote and literary criticism that has been honed over a lifetime of teaching. Poetry can enrich our lives, if we'll let it. The Point of Poetry is the perfect companion for anyone looking to discover how.
Each poem is discussed with humour and refreshing clarity, using a mixture of anecdote and literary criticism that has been honed over a lifetime of teaching. Poetry can enrich our lives, if we'll let it. The Point of Poetry is the perfect companion for anyone looking to discover how.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published March 21, 2019
3 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Joe Nutt
8 books7 followersJoe Nutt's writing career really began when he published an essay on Anthony Powell as a postgraduate student at The University of Warwick, (after his tutor had graded it B) and then followed that up by winning first prize in the university's short story competition. His academic books are used by some of the leading schools in the UK. He wrote a fortnightly column for the Times Educational Supplement between 2015 and 2019 and has written for The Spectator, Spiked and Areo magazines. His most recent book, 'The Point of Poetry,' was published by Unbound in March 2019. He is writing a new book for John Catt, 'Teaching English for the Real World.'
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 26, 2019
Lots of adults are afraid of poetry, Joe Nutt believes. As a Midlands lad he loved going to the public library and had a magical first encounter with poetry at secondary school – the last time many people will ever read it. A former English teacher and Times Educational Supplement columnist who has written books about Shakespeare, Donne and Milton, he also spent many years in the business world, where he sensed apprehension and even hostility towards poetry. This book is meant as a gentle introduction, or reintroduction, to the joys of reading a poem for yourself.
The 22 chapters each focus on a particular poem, ranging in period and style from the stately metaphysical verse of Andrew Marvell to the rapid-fire performance rhythms of Hollie McNish. The pattern in these essays is to provide background on the poet and his or her milieu or style before moving into more explicit interpretation of the poem’s themes and techniques; the poem is then generally printed at the end of the chapter.*
I most appreciated the essays on poems I already knew and loved but gained extra insight into (“Blackberry-Picking” by Seamus Heaney and “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy) or had never read before, even if I knew other things by the same poets (“The Bistro Styx” by Rita Dove and “The Sea and the Skylark” by Gerard Manley Hopkins). The Dove poem echoes the Demeter and Persephone myth as it describes a meeting between a mother and daughter in a Paris café. The mother worries she’s lost her daughter to Paris – and, what’s worse, to a kitschy gift shop and an artist for whom she works as a model. Meanwhile, Heaney, Hardy and Hopkins all reflect – in their various, subtle ways – on environmental and societal collapse and ask what hope we might find in the midst of despair.
Other themes that come through in the chosen poems include Englishness and countryside knowledge (E. Nesbit and Edward Thomas), love, war and death. Nutt points out the things to look out for, such as doubling of words or sounds, punctuation, and line length. His commentary is especially useful in the chapters on Donne, Wordsworth and Hopkins. In other chapters, though, he can get sidetracked by personal anecdotes or hang-ups like people not knowing the difference between rifles and shotguns (his main reason for objecting to Vicki Feaver’s “The Gun,” to which he devotes a whole chapter) or Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize. These felt like unnecessary asides and detracted from the central goal of celebrating poetry. One can praise the good without denigrating what one thinks bad, yes?
*Except for a few confusing cases where it’s not. Where’s Ted Hughes’s “Tractor”? If reproduction rights couldn’t be obtained, a different poem should have been chosen. Why does a chapter on Keats’s “The Eve of St. Agnes” quote just a few fragments from it in the text but then end with a passage from Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (ditto with the excerpt from Donne that ends the chapter on Milton)? The particular Carol Ann Duffy and Robert Browning poems Nutt has chosen are TL; DR, while he errs to the other extreme by not quoting enough from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Paradise Lost, perhaps assuming too much audience familiarity. (I’ve never read either!)
So, overall, a bit of a mixed bag: probably better suited to those less familiar with poetry; and, oddly, often more successful for me in its generalizations than in its particulars:
Related reading:
The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner
52 Ways of Looking at a Poem by Ruth Padel
The Poem and the Journey and 60 Poems to Read Along the Way by Ruth Padel
The Poetry Pharmacy by William Sieghart
Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder
(I have read and can recommend all of these. Padel’s explication of poetry is top-notch.)
Originally published, with images, on my blog, Bookish Beck.
The 22 chapters each focus on a particular poem, ranging in period and style from the stately metaphysical verse of Andrew Marvell to the rapid-fire performance rhythms of Hollie McNish. The pattern in these essays is to provide background on the poet and his or her milieu or style before moving into more explicit interpretation of the poem’s themes and techniques; the poem is then generally printed at the end of the chapter.*
I most appreciated the essays on poems I already knew and loved but gained extra insight into (“Blackberry-Picking” by Seamus Heaney and “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy) or had never read before, even if I knew other things by the same poets (“The Bistro Styx” by Rita Dove and “The Sea and the Skylark” by Gerard Manley Hopkins). The Dove poem echoes the Demeter and Persephone myth as it describes a meeting between a mother and daughter in a Paris café. The mother worries she’s lost her daughter to Paris – and, what’s worse, to a kitschy gift shop and an artist for whom she works as a model. Meanwhile, Heaney, Hardy and Hopkins all reflect – in their various, subtle ways – on environmental and societal collapse and ask what hope we might find in the midst of despair.
Other themes that come through in the chosen poems include Englishness and countryside knowledge (E. Nesbit and Edward Thomas), love, war and death. Nutt points out the things to look out for, such as doubling of words or sounds, punctuation, and line length. His commentary is especially useful in the chapters on Donne, Wordsworth and Hopkins. In other chapters, though, he can get sidetracked by personal anecdotes or hang-ups like people not knowing the difference between rifles and shotguns (his main reason for objecting to Vicki Feaver’s “The Gun,” to which he devotes a whole chapter) or Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize. These felt like unnecessary asides and detracted from the central goal of celebrating poetry. One can praise the good without denigrating what one thinks bad, yes?
*Except for a few confusing cases where it’s not. Where’s Ted Hughes’s “Tractor”? If reproduction rights couldn’t be obtained, a different poem should have been chosen. Why does a chapter on Keats’s “The Eve of St. Agnes” quote just a few fragments from it in the text but then end with a passage from Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (ditto with the excerpt from Donne that ends the chapter on Milton)? The particular Carol Ann Duffy and Robert Browning poems Nutt has chosen are TL; DR, while he errs to the other extreme by not quoting enough from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Paradise Lost, perhaps assuming too much audience familiarity. (I’ve never read either!)
So, overall, a bit of a mixed bag: probably better suited to those less familiar with poetry; and, oddly, often more successful for me in its generalizations than in its particulars:
if you once perceive that poetry operates on the edges of man’s knowledge and experience, that it represents in art a profoundly sincere attempt by individuals to grapple with the inexorable conditions of human life, then you are well on the way to becoming not just a reader of it but a fan.
The poet’s skill is in making us look at the world anew, through different, less tainted lenses.
A poem, however unique and strange, however pure and white the page it sits on, doesn’t enter your life unaccompanied. It comes surrounded by literary echoes and memories, loaded with the past. That’s why you get better at understanding [poems], why you enjoy them more, the more you read.
Poetry is so often parsimonious. It makes us work for our supper.
Rossetti deliberately avoids certainty throughout. I enjoy that in any poem. It makes you think.
There is really only one response to great poetry: an unqualified, appreciative ‘yes’.
Related reading:
The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner
52 Ways of Looking at a Poem by Ruth Padel
The Poem and the Journey and 60 Poems to Read Along the Way by Ruth Padel
The Poetry Pharmacy by William Sieghart
Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder
(I have read and can recommend all of these. Padel’s explication of poetry is top-notch.)
Originally published, with images, on my blog, Bookish Beck.
March 29, 2019
If you'd have asked me what's the point of poetry at the age of sixteen you would have got a very different answer than I would give now. My English teach of the time had managed to almost put the entire class off reading and it would be a very long time before I even though about picking up a book of poems. In the end, I came back to poetry a couple of decades later via a circuitous route. Some of my favourite books on the natural world have been by authors who are best known as poets, such as Kathleen Jamie and Paul Farley, and it was the desire to read more by them led me to pick up their poetry books. From those small re-beginnings, I have made a conscious effort to read at least one poetry book a month now.
Joe Nutt is well placed to reignite a love for poetry in other people, as his love for it has been honed over a lifetime of teaching it to others. In this book, he considers twenty-two poems, taking a chapter to concentrate on a specific poem. There are some really famous ones in here, such as The Tyger by William Blake and Adlestrop by Edward Thomas as well others that are less well known, such as The Gun by Vicki Feaver. So I had heard of, but most of them I hadn't come across before at all, nor read. He takes each poem and breaks it down into manageable sections before analysing those parts and drawing out exactly what the poet was trying to do. Thankfully he doesn't go into endless detail, but his pointers will help you get the maximum out of the poem.
Each of the poems he has selected build towards the final two that he considers the two best written in the English language, The Prelude by William Wordsworth and Paradise Lost by John Milton. With these, he encourages you to use the techniques for gaining deeper meaning that he explained throughout the book with the other poems and get you to apply them to these. I liked having the single chapter per poem, it works well and you can dip in as you want. It is good to have poems that he loved in there as well as ones that he was not so keen on. Poets have a way of cramming so much meaning into so few words and overall I thought this was worth reading, to have someone explain just what the poet had in mind as they pulled the words onto the page.
Joe Nutt is well placed to reignite a love for poetry in other people, as his love for it has been honed over a lifetime of teaching it to others. In this book, he considers twenty-two poems, taking a chapter to concentrate on a specific poem. There are some really famous ones in here, such as The Tyger by William Blake and Adlestrop by Edward Thomas as well others that are less well known, such as The Gun by Vicki Feaver. So I had heard of, but most of them I hadn't come across before at all, nor read. He takes each poem and breaks it down into manageable sections before analysing those parts and drawing out exactly what the poet was trying to do. Thankfully he doesn't go into endless detail, but his pointers will help you get the maximum out of the poem.
Each of the poems he has selected build towards the final two that he considers the two best written in the English language, The Prelude by William Wordsworth and Paradise Lost by John Milton. With these, he encourages you to use the techniques for gaining deeper meaning that he explained throughout the book with the other poems and get you to apply them to these. I liked having the single chapter per poem, it works well and you can dip in as you want. It is good to have poems that he loved in there as well as ones that he was not so keen on. Poets have a way of cramming so much meaning into so few words and overall I thought this was worth reading, to have someone explain just what the poet had in mind as they pulled the words onto the page.
March 21, 2019
When I first read the precis of Joe Nutt’s The Point of Poetry, I wanted to review it. I’m a poetry gal – read it, write it, love it.
Like a great piece of art or music, a poem that resonates is worth its weight in gold and Nutt’s book is a great introduction to a contained selection of such works, from classics such as Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 18’ and Milton’s wonderful epic poem Paradise Lost to more modern pieces like spoken word poet Holly McNish’s topical ‘Famous for what?’ and former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Mrs Midas’.
It’s a handsomely produced, well thought out book, well written and accessible and Nutt’s obvious love for his subject is clear to see. And yet if I have one slight criticism, it’s that the poems analysed, while all great, are fairly conservative and don’t represent the extremely diverse culture within which we live. And that might put some readers off, which would be a shame.
I’ve loved poetry from the time my beloved mama gave me a luridly orange, laminated children’s compendium which married kings and queens of England and Scotland with poems. I must have been about 8 or 9 at the time and reading Keats at the end of an essay on Mary Queen of Scots just transported me, why I can’t tell you – most of the language I was far too young to understand, yet there I was hooked.
Over the years, Sylvia Plath lived with me, Maya Angelou and Alice Walker carried me, Wilfred Owen moved me and Gil Scott-Heron energised me, as I listened to Nick Cave and wept to the beauty of wordsmith Elliott Smith, their lyrics poems by another name. That’s what beautiful words should do – make you feel, take you to places you haven’t been before, make you think, as you recognise your circumstances, your otherness in someone else’s experience, in their creativity. And, perhaps Nutt’s volume, as a good general introduction to the subject, will be the stepping stone to those kind of experiences for people who previously may have found poetry inaccessible. I hope so. There is a galaxy of great poetry, in many different guises, out there. Pick one and see.
See: http://www.theliteraryshed.co.uk/read...
This review is published as part of the book blog tour. Thank you to Unbound for a copy of the book. All thoughts are our own. All rights reserved.
Like a great piece of art or music, a poem that resonates is worth its weight in gold and Nutt’s book is a great introduction to a contained selection of such works, from classics such as Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 18’ and Milton’s wonderful epic poem Paradise Lost to more modern pieces like spoken word poet Holly McNish’s topical ‘Famous for what?’ and former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Mrs Midas’.
It’s a handsomely produced, well thought out book, well written and accessible and Nutt’s obvious love for his subject is clear to see. And yet if I have one slight criticism, it’s that the poems analysed, while all great, are fairly conservative and don’t represent the extremely diverse culture within which we live. And that might put some readers off, which would be a shame.
I’ve loved poetry from the time my beloved mama gave me a luridly orange, laminated children’s compendium which married kings and queens of England and Scotland with poems. I must have been about 8 or 9 at the time and reading Keats at the end of an essay on Mary Queen of Scots just transported me, why I can’t tell you – most of the language I was far too young to understand, yet there I was hooked.
Over the years, Sylvia Plath lived with me, Maya Angelou and Alice Walker carried me, Wilfred Owen moved me and Gil Scott-Heron energised me, as I listened to Nick Cave and wept to the beauty of wordsmith Elliott Smith, their lyrics poems by another name. That’s what beautiful words should do – make you feel, take you to places you haven’t been before, make you think, as you recognise your circumstances, your otherness in someone else’s experience, in their creativity. And, perhaps Nutt’s volume, as a good general introduction to the subject, will be the stepping stone to those kind of experiences for people who previously may have found poetry inaccessible. I hope so. There is a galaxy of great poetry, in many different guises, out there. Pick one and see.
See: http://www.theliteraryshed.co.uk/read...
This review is published as part of the book blog tour. Thank you to Unbound for a copy of the book. All thoughts are our own. All rights reserved.
April 6, 2020
I came across Joe Nutt's introduction to poetry for the metrophobe - the person who doesn't like or 'get' poetry - through a review from Dr Oliver Tearle's excellent literary site, Interesting Literature.
The idea of the book appealed to me. I teach poetry to English students, mostly GCSE and A Level ones, and the majority of them study the subject under considerable duress. They really don't 'get it' at all when it comes to poetry. I sympathise. I didn't get it at their age either and it can still leave me cold. Nor am I a natural with understanding poetry even now - after decades of teaching students to understand it, perhaps appreciate it, occasionally love it. I can read some poems and find myself thinking "I don't have a foggiest of a clue what that was about!".
Nutt's book seemed a perfect resource to use. Firstly, a great collection of poems to work through. Some well known, of course. Others, such as Hollie McNish's 'Famous For What?', less so. Then, a potted summary and analysis aimed at those who might be reluctant to engage. This would be super for me, I thought. I'm always looking for new ways, new insights, new ideas, to incorporate into my teaching techniques. On the front cover, the publishers boast that the book will show 'How Poetry Can Teach Us About the Things in Life That Really Matter'. Fab. This book will be relevant.
Oh dear. What a disappointment the pages proved to be. I guess not judging a book by its cover works in both directions sometimes.
The book is still a useful resource -twenty-two poems which are, every single one, wonderful examples of the finest poetry has to offer. I will refer to some of these often and I am grateful to the author for deepening my love of Carol Ann Duffy and Ted Hughes. For this reason, I've given three stars in my rating.
But Nutt's musings on these pieces are, frankly, awful. I wouldn't want him anywhere near my students and I'm aghast he's considered 'one of the leading educationalists in the UK' according to the book blurb. I hope he advises and guides better than he writes. The book is full of nothing but the rants of an often angry old man with occasional moments of waxing lyrical about the stuff he really likes.
Nutt attacks poetry he doesn't approve of. He slaughter's McNish's poetry, admitting near the end of his essay that he effectively added her as an example of bad poetry. He has nothing but bad things too to say about Vicki Feaver's 'The Gun' for what he perceives to be an error in the mechanics of how a shotgun should operate. He goes on about how much of an expert in using guns he is and how he even won an award for preventing an armed robbery. He does this to dismiss things Feaver has said about her poem and to trash it. Frankly, he makes himself seem very small in doing so. There are so many reasons why he might be wrong but, even if he's right, since when did poets stick to the accurate laws of science? Let's kick out all the romantic poets with their golden (actually yellow) daffodils and sunshine kissing the earth and nonsense shall we?
By contrast, he writes the longest and most deadly boring soliloquy about Milton 'Paradise Lost'. If I gave this essay to any of my students to read I would succeed in killing any chance of getting them to love poetry. I found myself hating Milton purely from the opinionated nonsense Nutt splurged onto the page here. It's not a good sign when a book on poetry actually leads you further away from wanting to read any.
If this book had been presented as one English teacher's thoughts on various loved, or hated, poems, then this would have been okay. It would have been more honest, for sure. But from the very beginning Nutt turns his back on the title and front cover. He quickly admits he's not interested in giving an analysis of each poem (because that, apparently, turns students off poetry) and from then on spends more time recollecting his own memories and criticising a range of subjects he doesn't like to only tangentially make a link to the actual poems he's talking about. Some of the essays are better than others, of course, and occasionally I learned something. But on the whole, I read each essay with a frown on my face and often a look of disgust.
The one good thing I came away with was that I must be doing something right with my own teaching because, most of the time, I usually manage to unlock some of the doors to poetry. I do this by appreciating where students are coming from.
The trick is in explaining that poems don't say what they mean - and do so in very few lines. They are a puzzle, an exercise to analyse because without doing so they will mean nothing. They invite the reader and listener to interpret them according to where each individual has come from. We bring our own experiences, our own baggage, our own loves, fears, battles and prejudices to each poem. Within all that, the poet calls us to hear what the poet was trying to say. Poems are metaphors - they say one aspect of the message explicitly but deliberately don't say the other, more important, aspect at all - you really do read 'between the lines'. Reading and loving poetry is as much about psychology as it is about understanding structures, metres and the various devices the poet has at their disposal. Joe Nutt, somehow, fails completely to understand this. Or, at least, he fails to communicate it in his book. His intent was there but the outcomes fall short.
If you want a collection of poems you can refer to, or be introduced to, then, fair enough, buy this book. But there are better ways to spend your money and considerably better ways to develop a love of poetry. My recommendation is go to Interesting Literature itself and sign up for email notifications for that website. It is brilliant, positive in the love of poetry and, best of all, free.
The idea of the book appealed to me. I teach poetry to English students, mostly GCSE and A Level ones, and the majority of them study the subject under considerable duress. They really don't 'get it' at all when it comes to poetry. I sympathise. I didn't get it at their age either and it can still leave me cold. Nor am I a natural with understanding poetry even now - after decades of teaching students to understand it, perhaps appreciate it, occasionally love it. I can read some poems and find myself thinking "I don't have a foggiest of a clue what that was about!".
Nutt's book seemed a perfect resource to use. Firstly, a great collection of poems to work through. Some well known, of course. Others, such as Hollie McNish's 'Famous For What?', less so. Then, a potted summary and analysis aimed at those who might be reluctant to engage. This would be super for me, I thought. I'm always looking for new ways, new insights, new ideas, to incorporate into my teaching techniques. On the front cover, the publishers boast that the book will show 'How Poetry Can Teach Us About the Things in Life That Really Matter'. Fab. This book will be relevant.
Oh dear. What a disappointment the pages proved to be. I guess not judging a book by its cover works in both directions sometimes.
The book is still a useful resource -twenty-two poems which are, every single one, wonderful examples of the finest poetry has to offer. I will refer to some of these often and I am grateful to the author for deepening my love of Carol Ann Duffy and Ted Hughes. For this reason, I've given three stars in my rating.
But Nutt's musings on these pieces are, frankly, awful. I wouldn't want him anywhere near my students and I'm aghast he's considered 'one of the leading educationalists in the UK' according to the book blurb. I hope he advises and guides better than he writes. The book is full of nothing but the rants of an often angry old man with occasional moments of waxing lyrical about the stuff he really likes.
Nutt attacks poetry he doesn't approve of. He slaughter's McNish's poetry, admitting near the end of his essay that he effectively added her as an example of bad poetry. He has nothing but bad things too to say about Vicki Feaver's 'The Gun' for what he perceives to be an error in the mechanics of how a shotgun should operate. He goes on about how much of an expert in using guns he is and how he even won an award for preventing an armed robbery. He does this to dismiss things Feaver has said about her poem and to trash it. Frankly, he makes himself seem very small in doing so. There are so many reasons why he might be wrong but, even if he's right, since when did poets stick to the accurate laws of science? Let's kick out all the romantic poets with their golden (actually yellow) daffodils and sunshine kissing the earth and nonsense shall we?
By contrast, he writes the longest and most deadly boring soliloquy about Milton 'Paradise Lost'. If I gave this essay to any of my students to read I would succeed in killing any chance of getting them to love poetry. I found myself hating Milton purely from the opinionated nonsense Nutt splurged onto the page here. It's not a good sign when a book on poetry actually leads you further away from wanting to read any.
If this book had been presented as one English teacher's thoughts on various loved, or hated, poems, then this would have been okay. It would have been more honest, for sure. But from the very beginning Nutt turns his back on the title and front cover. He quickly admits he's not interested in giving an analysis of each poem (because that, apparently, turns students off poetry) and from then on spends more time recollecting his own memories and criticising a range of subjects he doesn't like to only tangentially make a link to the actual poems he's talking about. Some of the essays are better than others, of course, and occasionally I learned something. But on the whole, I read each essay with a frown on my face and often a look of disgust.
The one good thing I came away with was that I must be doing something right with my own teaching because, most of the time, I usually manage to unlock some of the doors to poetry. I do this by appreciating where students are coming from.
The trick is in explaining that poems don't say what they mean - and do so in very few lines. They are a puzzle, an exercise to analyse because without doing so they will mean nothing. They invite the reader and listener to interpret them according to where each individual has come from. We bring our own experiences, our own baggage, our own loves, fears, battles and prejudices to each poem. Within all that, the poet calls us to hear what the poet was trying to say. Poems are metaphors - they say one aspect of the message explicitly but deliberately don't say the other, more important, aspect at all - you really do read 'between the lines'. Reading and loving poetry is as much about psychology as it is about understanding structures, metres and the various devices the poet has at their disposal. Joe Nutt, somehow, fails completely to understand this. Or, at least, he fails to communicate it in his book. His intent was there but the outcomes fall short.
If you want a collection of poems you can refer to, or be introduced to, then, fair enough, buy this book. But there are better ways to spend your money and considerably better ways to develop a love of poetry. My recommendation is go to Interesting Literature itself and sign up for email notifications for that website. It is brilliant, positive in the love of poetry and, best of all, free.
March 18, 2019
What immediately springs to mind dear reader when I mention poetry? I am hoping you are not using the words dull or boring. Such crass language to describe such a pleasurable experience. Truly mind-blowing, trust me. There’s so much more to poetry than you assume, it has run wildly barefoot throughout history. An enchanting sight to behold. Take a risk, dip your toe into the unknown and discover how bewitching it can be. Before long you will be searching for the most dangerous cliff-top to gracefully swan drive off of, gently embracing the hidden depths of the ocean with ease.
Being a poet myself I was extremely intrigued how Nutt would dissect poetry. Admittedly I was worried he would display its entrails and organs for all to judge and sneer at. Thankfully this was not the case; from the moment I started reading I could feel Nutt’s passion to educate the metrophobes that walk blindfolded through life never understanding the point of poetry.
This book is specifically aimed at people who haven’t discovered the joys and depth of poetry, those that have habitually shrugged it off as irrelevant or archaic. Nutt masterfully reveals what they have been missing by discussing famous poets such as William Blake and John Keats, through to contemporary poets like Hollie McNish and Carol Ann Duffy. It’s a delicious mixture of old and new mingled together to create an intoxicating beverage, drank from a ruby encrusted golden chalice that everyone should sample.
You see dear reader, many people have this stereotypical view of poetry which usually dates back to their school days, hunched over poems in a stuffy classroom while an unenthused teacher drones on about rhyming couplets. There’s often no passion beyond the words being spoken and no explanation to what the point of all of this actually is. Why should I care? This is where The Point Of Poetry comes into play. How I wish this had been around during my school days for fellow students to see and understand how much poetry can teach us about life.
I very much enjoyed Nutt’s sense of humour and his approach to making poetry accessible to the youth of today. At times I was transported back to my university days, sat in a seminar listening to lecturers come alive like a sparkler as they waltz around the room with poetry. Nutt discusses the poets’ life, his personal experiences with the poems. His passion for poetry is infectious: I found myself smiling and admiring his intellectual view on the poems presented. It is fascinating to read.
Nutt has taken extra care in deciding which poems to present to the reader. A healthy variety of choice and just enough to tempt the reader to indulging, long after they finish reading. He doesn’t fool them into thinking this is a book about analysing poems and skinning them down to the bone. Far from it. Nutt talks about so much more, how poets pack meaning into words, that they are skilful, talented within their craft. No other writer does this the same way as the poet. Poets bring nature to life, they see the finer details that others so easily dismiss. Picture the scene. An escaped orange from a passenger’s carrier bag is transformed into the inevitable acceptance of death, it tumbles down the gangway with reckless abandon before getting abruptly squashed under the busdriver’s boot, an emergency break because a lone deer has stumbled into his path. Poetry is all around, everywhere you look. And wow, is it beautiful.
The thing I really enjoyed about this book is how Nutt encourages the reader to have their own views and opinions on poems. He warns them that there will be poems in the book they may not like but he consciously admits he does not expect the reader to love every single poem presented. He opens the readers eyes to explore why they don’t agree with a poem, why it makes them angry and have such strong negative feelings towards it. To question, dig and explore all avenues.
I give The Point Of Poetry By Joe Nutt a Five out of Five paw rating.
I am absolutely in love with this book, besotted. It has pride of place alongside the poets who inspire me on a daily basics. A captivating read that will more than satisfy any curious mind who wishes to discover The Point of Poetry.
Being a poet myself I was extremely intrigued how Nutt would dissect poetry. Admittedly I was worried he would display its entrails and organs for all to judge and sneer at. Thankfully this was not the case; from the moment I started reading I could feel Nutt’s passion to educate the metrophobes that walk blindfolded through life never understanding the point of poetry.
This book is specifically aimed at people who haven’t discovered the joys and depth of poetry, those that have habitually shrugged it off as irrelevant or archaic. Nutt masterfully reveals what they have been missing by discussing famous poets such as William Blake and John Keats, through to contemporary poets like Hollie McNish and Carol Ann Duffy. It’s a delicious mixture of old and new mingled together to create an intoxicating beverage, drank from a ruby encrusted golden chalice that everyone should sample.
You see dear reader, many people have this stereotypical view of poetry which usually dates back to their school days, hunched over poems in a stuffy classroom while an unenthused teacher drones on about rhyming couplets. There’s often no passion beyond the words being spoken and no explanation to what the point of all of this actually is. Why should I care? This is where The Point Of Poetry comes into play. How I wish this had been around during my school days for fellow students to see and understand how much poetry can teach us about life.
I very much enjoyed Nutt’s sense of humour and his approach to making poetry accessible to the youth of today. At times I was transported back to my university days, sat in a seminar listening to lecturers come alive like a sparkler as they waltz around the room with poetry. Nutt discusses the poets’ life, his personal experiences with the poems. His passion for poetry is infectious: I found myself smiling and admiring his intellectual view on the poems presented. It is fascinating to read.
Nutt has taken extra care in deciding which poems to present to the reader. A healthy variety of choice and just enough to tempt the reader to indulging, long after they finish reading. He doesn’t fool them into thinking this is a book about analysing poems and skinning them down to the bone. Far from it. Nutt talks about so much more, how poets pack meaning into words, that they are skilful, talented within their craft. No other writer does this the same way as the poet. Poets bring nature to life, they see the finer details that others so easily dismiss. Picture the scene. An escaped orange from a passenger’s carrier bag is transformed into the inevitable acceptance of death, it tumbles down the gangway with reckless abandon before getting abruptly squashed under the busdriver’s boot, an emergency break because a lone deer has stumbled into his path. Poetry is all around, everywhere you look. And wow, is it beautiful.
The thing I really enjoyed about this book is how Nutt encourages the reader to have their own views and opinions on poems. He warns them that there will be poems in the book they may not like but he consciously admits he does not expect the reader to love every single poem presented. He opens the readers eyes to explore why they don’t agree with a poem, why it makes them angry and have such strong negative feelings towards it. To question, dig and explore all avenues.
I give The Point Of Poetry By Joe Nutt a Five out of Five paw rating.
I am absolutely in love with this book, besotted. It has pride of place alongside the poets who inspire me on a daily basics. A captivating read that will more than satisfy any curious mind who wishes to discover The Point of Poetry.
March 25, 2019
Why read poetry? Why is poetry, contemporary or classic, worth teaching, experiencing and studying? Joe Nutt, veteran of teaching poetry in many places to many people, has chosen a selection of poems, some well known, some classic, and some which are more challenging, and provided an essay on each one which has the stated aim of making the reader eager to read the poem itself. He wants to convince the vaguely interested, the not really interested, and the basically poetry phobic, that poems are the most challenging, the most exciting and the most expressive forms of writing in English. He is fond of likening them to a firework, being a mix of components which when lit gives the most amazing, fantastic and dramatic display. He is not merely a devotee of the form; he uses current events, well chosen biographical information and a critical eye to enthuse the reader to see new and exciting aspects of poetry both familiar and unknown. He writes that this book “is not as ambitious.” as War poetry, which he does not directly cover; “It doesn’t set out to change the world”. He patiently but never tediously seeks to convert every reader to the enjoyment and excitement of poetry, maintaining a certain pace which attracts, enlightens and certainly makes an excellent case for the poems he features. This is not an exam passbook, painstakingly going through each poem in every metaphor, simile, alliteration and all the other points that can obtain marks in a written paper. Rather, it seeks to transmit the excitement and living nature of poetry whether read from the page, recited aloud, or part of a performance which tends towards rap. As someone who has tried to teach poetry in many settings, and sometimes failed to see the point, I was delighted to read and review this book.
The selection of poems in this book is often surprising, subtly reassuring, and sometimes extremely challenging. War poetry, such as that of Owen and Sassoon which can maintain interest because of its graphic nature is not here; instead there is the wonderfully subtle and somehow powerful “Adlestrop” by Edward Thomas in which nothing has changed, but there is no one thing the same. Rosenberg’s poetry is not graphic in the same way, pondering the universality of a rat in the trenches. There is a Shakespearean sonnet, number 18, which is discussed partly as providing possible chat up lines, while acknowledging its power and beauty. Carol Ann Duffy’s “Mrs Midas” is not only seen as a clever poem giving a voice to the wives of the well known, but also describes the sexual and physiological effects on a marriage of time as well as a memorable curse. Nutt acknowledges that Blake’s “The Tyger” has been so often taught in schools as to be trotted out with no understanding, but that when looked at with new eyes has a deep power which has hitherto been unsuspected. Donne’s rather exciting life and choices is examined in the light of his “Twickenham Garden”, while no implication, racy or otherwise, is ignored in “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell. Abandoning classic poetry for the moment, he explains, critiques and generally comments on performance poetry in “Famous for what?” by Hollie McNish.
This is a brilliant book, commenting not only on the poems included but also on poetry generally, the classical expectations and the more modern challenges. Whatever your experience and feelings concerning poetry, this book is a valuable addition to any collection of books on the subject, enthusing, arguing and crucially providing the scaffolding for a true appreciation of the poet’s art.
The selection of poems in this book is often surprising, subtly reassuring, and sometimes extremely challenging. War poetry, such as that of Owen and Sassoon which can maintain interest because of its graphic nature is not here; instead there is the wonderfully subtle and somehow powerful “Adlestrop” by Edward Thomas in which nothing has changed, but there is no one thing the same. Rosenberg’s poetry is not graphic in the same way, pondering the universality of a rat in the trenches. There is a Shakespearean sonnet, number 18, which is discussed partly as providing possible chat up lines, while acknowledging its power and beauty. Carol Ann Duffy’s “Mrs Midas” is not only seen as a clever poem giving a voice to the wives of the well known, but also describes the sexual and physiological effects on a marriage of time as well as a memorable curse. Nutt acknowledges that Blake’s “The Tyger” has been so often taught in schools as to be trotted out with no understanding, but that when looked at with new eyes has a deep power which has hitherto been unsuspected. Donne’s rather exciting life and choices is examined in the light of his “Twickenham Garden”, while no implication, racy or otherwise, is ignored in “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell. Abandoning classic poetry for the moment, he explains, critiques and generally comments on performance poetry in “Famous for what?” by Hollie McNish.
This is a brilliant book, commenting not only on the poems included but also on poetry generally, the classical expectations and the more modern challenges. Whatever your experience and feelings concerning poetry, this book is a valuable addition to any collection of books on the subject, enthusing, arguing and crucially providing the scaffolding for a true appreciation of the poet’s art.
March 21, 2020
Mr. Nutt's stated aim in writing the book was to seduce the 'metrophobic' into overcoming an aversion to poetry, a syndrome he attributes to failed education systems. How successful his wooing of the poetry-shy may have been, I cannot say, but I found the book both entertaining and enlightening. And at no point pedantic, surely a notable achievement: a set of 22 essays on a single theme risks becoming tiresome; Nutt never does. Even if all his other arguments may have fallen on deaf ears, it seems to me that one epigrammatic statement succeeded in summing it up: We will always need poets because they are the only men and women who insist there's a difference between apology and justice. Surely a concept of much broader application, and one that many a politician would benefit from learning to apply.
The fact that Nutt was motivated to write such a set of essays at all goes some way to supporting his assertion regarding the poverty of education in literature that prevails in today's schools. He acknowledges the magnitude of the task he set for himself — to convey, in a compelling fashion, that poetry truly matters in the grand scheme of things. The examples he chooses are a diverse lot, from the deviously clever verbal gymnastics of John Dunne to the grumpily ironic "Mr. Midas" of Carol Ann Duffy, with visits to such luminaries as William Blake and Ted Hughes. To his credit, he doesn't restrict his survey to the grand and glorious, lest his thesis become monochromatic; every meal needs some bitter bits to spice it up and illuminate the star performers. Among other merits of the book, I'm grateful for having been introduced to a poet I might never have encountered: Gerald Manley Hopkins' "The Sea and the Skylark", despite its seeming opacity, is a delightfully intricate construction, akin to a finely crafted Swiss chronometer, entirely devoid of ornamentation, every miniscule cog and jewel honed to perfection so as to fulfill it function. And full credit to Nutt for having led his perhaps apprehensive reader from friendly waters at the safe end of the pool into the deepest recesses of a seething sea-cave (such as "Paradise Lost") without losing his reader to terror along the way.
I was moved to flag many pithy observations; I will quote just one: With the exception of touch, mathematics and possibly music, which is really mathematics practised by artists, the only way we have of communicating anything is through words. Our individual lives are imprisoned and enriched by the language that we use, the words we exchange with others. Poetry is where the possibilities happen. It is the way humans test what language can do, not just to breaking point, but beyond. Without it we are vulnerable to those who weaponize and wield words for political or personal purposes. It is our only bulwark against barbarity. Which is why it is endlessly fascinating, continually surprising and, more than more than anything else, capable of distilling beauty.
A book to be treasured and re-read many times.
The fact that Nutt was motivated to write such a set of essays at all goes some way to supporting his assertion regarding the poverty of education in literature that prevails in today's schools. He acknowledges the magnitude of the task he set for himself — to convey, in a compelling fashion, that poetry truly matters in the grand scheme of things. The examples he chooses are a diverse lot, from the deviously clever verbal gymnastics of John Dunne to the grumpily ironic "Mr. Midas" of Carol Ann Duffy, with visits to such luminaries as William Blake and Ted Hughes. To his credit, he doesn't restrict his survey to the grand and glorious, lest his thesis become monochromatic; every meal needs some bitter bits to spice it up and illuminate the star performers. Among other merits of the book, I'm grateful for having been introduced to a poet I might never have encountered: Gerald Manley Hopkins' "The Sea and the Skylark", despite its seeming opacity, is a delightfully intricate construction, akin to a finely crafted Swiss chronometer, entirely devoid of ornamentation, every miniscule cog and jewel honed to perfection so as to fulfill it function. And full credit to Nutt for having led his perhaps apprehensive reader from friendly waters at the safe end of the pool into the deepest recesses of a seething sea-cave (such as "Paradise Lost") without losing his reader to terror along the way.
I was moved to flag many pithy observations; I will quote just one: With the exception of touch, mathematics and possibly music, which is really mathematics practised by artists, the only way we have of communicating anything is through words. Our individual lives are imprisoned and enriched by the language that we use, the words we exchange with others. Poetry is where the possibilities happen. It is the way humans test what language can do, not just to breaking point, but beyond. Without it we are vulnerable to those who weaponize and wield words for political or personal purposes. It is our only bulwark against barbarity. Which is why it is endlessly fascinating, continually surprising and, more than more than anything else, capable of distilling beauty.
A book to be treasured and re-read many times.
March 25, 2019
Occasionally on a dark and cloudy day, there are moments when the sun peeps through and positively beams on the earth below, illuminating it and making everything breath taking, Only for seconds later the clouds to once again take hold and coat everything in their grey shroud. That for me is poetry. I will stumble upon a poem, Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy for instance, and I will be able to grasp on to it, it will resonate with me and I glimpse at all poetry could be. But then I turn the page and the following poem is indecipherable, inaccessible and I give up.
So The Point of Poetry designed to unlock poems to those of us suffering from metrophobia (a fear of poetry), spoke to me before I had even read a page. At least I wasn’t the only one with this problem! At last I almost cried!
The book is set around a series of famous poems, each one preceded by a short chapter written by Nutt highlighting the main points/background to the poem.
I was pleased to see The Tyger by William Blake amongst its pages. I vividly remember standing in front of my class at school having to recite the first verse of this poem. Something I can still do to this day. Yet never once, not ever, do I remember discussing the industrial revolution, religion or even William Blake’s life and the influence this may have had on his work. This is what Nutt highlights and it was fascinating to approach a poem from this angle.
I loved the selection of poems, (that must have been a epic task). I can now say I have read Heaney, Browning, Donne. Get me! I was pleased to see Carol Ann Duffy made the list, I actually had read Mrs Midas before, The World’s Wife being one of the few poetry books I own. Yet I read it with renewed insight.
Not all the poets chosen were dearly departed. I was intrigued by Nutt’s references to performance poetry and so looked up Hollie McNish (the performance poet referred to by Nutt) on You Tube. I’ve now watched several of her poems and really like her. Like Nutt said, it’s all about connecting to a poem and McNish, raising small children in an age of Social Media, really resonates with me.
Punctuation, alliteration, authenticity, a poet’s background and the age they lived in. These are things I now scrutinise when reading poetry. The book has without doubt made me appreciate poetry more. However I don’t yet feel like I quite have graduated from Nutt’s school of thought. I haven’t quite got why a poet chooses certain words and could still do with Nutt holding my hand. Please Mr Nutt, can you write another book about another selection of poems? I would be first in the queue to buy it!
So The Point of Poetry designed to unlock poems to those of us suffering from metrophobia (a fear of poetry), spoke to me before I had even read a page. At least I wasn’t the only one with this problem! At last I almost cried!
The book is set around a series of famous poems, each one preceded by a short chapter written by Nutt highlighting the main points/background to the poem.
I was pleased to see The Tyger by William Blake amongst its pages. I vividly remember standing in front of my class at school having to recite the first verse of this poem. Something I can still do to this day. Yet never once, not ever, do I remember discussing the industrial revolution, religion or even William Blake’s life and the influence this may have had on his work. This is what Nutt highlights and it was fascinating to approach a poem from this angle.
I loved the selection of poems, (that must have been a epic task). I can now say I have read Heaney, Browning, Donne. Get me! I was pleased to see Carol Ann Duffy made the list, I actually had read Mrs Midas before, The World’s Wife being one of the few poetry books I own. Yet I read it with renewed insight.
Not all the poets chosen were dearly departed. I was intrigued by Nutt’s references to performance poetry and so looked up Hollie McNish (the performance poet referred to by Nutt) on You Tube. I’ve now watched several of her poems and really like her. Like Nutt said, it’s all about connecting to a poem and McNish, raising small children in an age of Social Media, really resonates with me.
Punctuation, alliteration, authenticity, a poet’s background and the age they lived in. These are things I now scrutinise when reading poetry. The book has without doubt made me appreciate poetry more. However I don’t yet feel like I quite have graduated from Nutt’s school of thought. I haven’t quite got why a poet chooses certain words and could still do with Nutt holding my hand. Please Mr Nutt, can you write another book about another selection of poems? I would be first in the queue to buy it!
April 13, 2019
I’ve always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with poetry. I’ve studied English Literature to degree level and I��m currently studying for a Masters in Creative Writing, as such it has been impossible for me to avoid poetry. I have even *gasp* had to write it this year (although the jury is out as to how successful my attempts actually are!).
I think everything I hate about poetry stems from the way in which I was initially taught it at school. When forced to sit and pull apart the words of, usually men, from an entirely different time, it is difficult to feel and appreciate what is there, and also how it can still be relevant today. I will be honest and say that it had left me with a bit of an eye roll and a tut reaction whenever poetry was mentioned. This was until this year, when I got to see poetry in a different light. I’ve been able to explore it, feel it and really appreciate it.
The Point of Poetry is a wonderful handbook if, like I used to, you suffer from the eyeroll/tut syndrome. The author, Joe Nutt is a former teacher, and his aim with this book is to present poetry in a refreshing new light. This is not a dry and staid literary companion, instead it is fresh, witty and has, on more than one occasion, had me laughing out loud. The author’s personality seeps through the pages and I have found it to be incredibly readable.
I especially liked that the book offers a wide range of poets, the classics are there; Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, but there are also much more up to date poets, including Carol Ann Duffy (my personal favourite) and Hollie McNish (a poet I’d now like to read more by). This book isn’t intended to be the be all and end all in poetry, instead it is a starting point. It tickles the poetic taste buds and allows the reader to go off and explore with a little bit of knowledge and know how behind them.
I’ve discovered that poetry, much like music, and novel reading, is an intensely personal experience. You’ll never enjoy or ‘get’ everything, instead you explore and try new things. Poetry really can be exciting to read, and with so many platforms (You Tube, Ted, Instagram etc) now available, it is more accessible than ever. Indeed, I have been seeing articles recently reporting that the popularity of poetry is on the rise, particularly with women.
If you’re looking for a gentle re-introduction to poetry, generously lathered with humour, then I highly recommend The Point of Poetry.
I think everything I hate about poetry stems from the way in which I was initially taught it at school. When forced to sit and pull apart the words of, usually men, from an entirely different time, it is difficult to feel and appreciate what is there, and also how it can still be relevant today. I will be honest and say that it had left me with a bit of an eye roll and a tut reaction whenever poetry was mentioned. This was until this year, when I got to see poetry in a different light. I’ve been able to explore it, feel it and really appreciate it.
The Point of Poetry is a wonderful handbook if, like I used to, you suffer from the eyeroll/tut syndrome. The author, Joe Nutt is a former teacher, and his aim with this book is to present poetry in a refreshing new light. This is not a dry and staid literary companion, instead it is fresh, witty and has, on more than one occasion, had me laughing out loud. The author’s personality seeps through the pages and I have found it to be incredibly readable.
I especially liked that the book offers a wide range of poets, the classics are there; Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, but there are also much more up to date poets, including Carol Ann Duffy (my personal favourite) and Hollie McNish (a poet I’d now like to read more by). This book isn’t intended to be the be all and end all in poetry, instead it is a starting point. It tickles the poetic taste buds and allows the reader to go off and explore with a little bit of knowledge and know how behind them.
I’ve discovered that poetry, much like music, and novel reading, is an intensely personal experience. You’ll never enjoy or ‘get’ everything, instead you explore and try new things. Poetry really can be exciting to read, and with so many platforms (You Tube, Ted, Instagram etc) now available, it is more accessible than ever. Indeed, I have been seeing articles recently reporting that the popularity of poetry is on the rise, particularly with women.
If you’re looking for a gentle re-introduction to poetry, generously lathered with humour, then I highly recommend The Point of Poetry.
March 29, 2019
This is the kind of book I would buy to help non-poetry lovers understand the attraction and potency of it. As a poetry lover myself I embrace anything, which could possibly encourage others to delve into it and find a little bit of beauty too.
There are some things in life that have an innate beauty, even when they are born from the pen, paintbrush or voice of a human being. Times when colours, words or sounds create a moment in time that calls to the soul and tugs at the passion inside of us. One can experience the same thing when the elements create a similar kind of beauty in nature or beauty that inspires the same visceral reaction.. Breathtaking scenery for instance.
Let’s focus on the man- or woman-made moments of beauty. Psychologists have studied what makes people cry when they hear music for instance, and have recognised certain personality attributes in them. Those who cried because they feel sadness scored high on the neuroticism scale and those who scored high in the openness to experience scale cried because they felt a profound sense of awe.
Awe at the capacity of a person to create such beauty that it elicits an extreme emotional response. I have those moments with poetry, music (especially classical and operatic music), art and very beautifully written books.
The author is keen to have poetry stand aside from the other contenders and have its own pedestal. This book is all about ‘lighting the touchpaper.’ I could have happily quoted from this book over and over again by the way. Nutt is a passionate educationalist, the kind of teacher who seeks out those who are inspired by and comprehend the beauty of poetry, and simultaneously those who fear and reject it.
Luckily the author also has a way with words. A book about the point of poetry could be dry, boring and terribly academic. Could be, but it isn’t. Nutt has created a work of beauty in his own right. Full of love and passion for poetry.
I love this book.
*I received a courtesy copy*
There are some things in life that have an innate beauty, even when they are born from the pen, paintbrush or voice of a human being. Times when colours, words or sounds create a moment in time that calls to the soul and tugs at the passion inside of us. One can experience the same thing when the elements create a similar kind of beauty in nature or beauty that inspires the same visceral reaction.. Breathtaking scenery for instance.
Let’s focus on the man- or woman-made moments of beauty. Psychologists have studied what makes people cry when they hear music for instance, and have recognised certain personality attributes in them. Those who cried because they feel sadness scored high on the neuroticism scale and those who scored high in the openness to experience scale cried because they felt a profound sense of awe.
Awe at the capacity of a person to create such beauty that it elicits an extreme emotional response. I have those moments with poetry, music (especially classical and operatic music), art and very beautifully written books.
The author is keen to have poetry stand aside from the other contenders and have its own pedestal. This book is all about ‘lighting the touchpaper.’ I could have happily quoted from this book over and over again by the way. Nutt is a passionate educationalist, the kind of teacher who seeks out those who are inspired by and comprehend the beauty of poetry, and simultaneously those who fear and reject it.
Luckily the author also has a way with words. A book about the point of poetry could be dry, boring and terribly academic. Could be, but it isn’t. Nutt has created a work of beauty in his own right. Full of love and passion for poetry.
I love this book.
*I received a courtesy copy*
March 21, 2019
I cannot say it often enough, or loudly enough: I absolutely loved this book. It is the very first time someone has looked at poetry and talked about it in a way anyone -and I mean anyone-can understand and enjoy. All the poems you studied and hated at school, and more, rediscovered and revealed. This book does not dissect like a post mortem, but makes us aware of nuances, depths, aspects of the poet, his/her world we may never have been taught or realised before. We hear voices of young men in love, teenage wannabe girls, old wives, young men on their way (never to return in this case) to war. Joe Nutt turns them into what the poet wanted you to hear, not what your teacher doled out. He opens up the language in the way it should be uncovered, gently and with love.
Mrs Midas made me laugh aloud, the Kim Kardashian fan made me sigh, Adlestrop transported me to that poignant hot English summer afternoon on a quiet country railway station, the wife murderer of My Last Duchess made me shiver. I even see Wordsworth in a new light now. And that, I suspect, is the key to the quiet friendly triumph of this book. You won’t regret reading this.
Mrs Midas made me laugh aloud, the Kim Kardashian fan made me sigh, Adlestrop transported me to that poignant hot English summer afternoon on a quiet country railway station, the wife murderer of My Last Duchess made me shiver. I even see Wordsworth in a new light now. And that, I suspect, is the key to the quiet friendly triumph of this book. You won’t regret reading this.
September 24, 2020
I think this is really a good book to help you understand or at least learn to like reading poetry with an open mind. It definitely helped undo the damage and confusion my A'levels teachers inflicted all those years ago. (I think the only thing good left from those 2 years was an appreciation for Larkin's poems. But this book has made me feel like I could read more poetry and enjoy it again.)
October 17, 2025
I find this kind of book is often read by those who already agree (rather than the nonbeliever) so this may not change anyone's mind, but the "thesis" is tight and the supporting arguments (i.e. poems) are well chosen.
January 27, 2024
Some fantastic points made about poetry that made me think. Loved thinking deeper about choice and why it is valuable. However, I wouldn’t say all of these poems are the best of the business.
May 26, 2019
I have a few favourite few poems from over the years but I aren’t much of a reader of poetry generally, I’ve always found it really intimidating. I did discover some love for poetry when I did an A-Level in English Lit as a mature student and was tasked with analysing Philip Larkin’s Mr Bleaney. I loved reading and re-reading this poem, and went on to read everything Larkin had written. I still find other poets intimidating though. The Point of Poetry is a wonderful book that has opened my eyes to the joy of poems.
Joe Nutt opens this book with an introduction that immediately made me feel at ease and in safe hands. He takes away the fear of poetry very quickly. Each chapter looks at a different poem and Nutt takes us through the poem giving some background, relating it to present day and making you eager to actually read the poem for yourself and see what you can discover in it. I loved that the poem discussed is placed at the end of each chapter as by the time I got to it I was excited to read it, whether it was a poem I already knew or one I’d never heard of before.
I also really appreciate that Nutt didn’t just pick well-known poems, although there are some in the book, but also that he didn’t just pick poems that he loves. There are poems such as Vicki Feaver’s The Gun which he has issues with but still felt it warranted being read and explored in this book. The selection really made me think about my own reactions to the poems individually and as a whole as I got further into this book, and left me mulling over my thoughts long after I’d finished reading.
I think the chapter that grabbed me the most was the one about Holly McNish. I’d heard of her before but had never read (or watched her perform) her poetry before. I was fascinated by her poem Famous For What? and am definitely going to buy one or two of her collections very soon. I also very much enjoyed the chapter on Rita Dove’s The Bistro Styx, and the comparisons with Philip Larkin’s Church Going so I will be seeking out more of her work too.
I also want to mention the chapter on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I had to study this poem in my second year at secondary school and I hated it! I loved English, it was my favourite subject and I loved reading but the way the teacher taught us that poem made it feel never-ending and unbearable. I’ve loathed it ever since because it always takes me back to those lessons. However, Nutt’s exploration of this poem has made me see it in a different light – I’ve since sought out my copy and re-reading it now as a 40 year old I found so much more in it and I’m so glad that I had my eyes opened to it.
I’ve always been much more drawn to poems that make me feel something. Often poems that make me cry are the ones that stay with me. I feel like this book has reminded me that different poems bring out different emotions and that I should be more open-minded and actually have more faith in my own abilities to find things in poems from now on.
I do have to quickly mention how beautiful this book is. It’s a gorgeous hardback and the endpapers have a lovely illustration of keys on them (which immediately made me feel that perhaps this book could unlock the world of poetry for me, and it did just that!).
I absolutely loved this book! I feel that it’s given me back the confidence to start picking up more poetry collections again and to spend time reading poems out loud and taking time to really think about them. Not only that, it’s made me excited to read poetry again! I’m so glad I read The Point of Poetry and I whole-heartedly recommend it!
This review was originally posted on my blog https://rathertoofondofbooks.com
Joe Nutt opens this book with an introduction that immediately made me feel at ease and in safe hands. He takes away the fear of poetry very quickly. Each chapter looks at a different poem and Nutt takes us through the poem giving some background, relating it to present day and making you eager to actually read the poem for yourself and see what you can discover in it. I loved that the poem discussed is placed at the end of each chapter as by the time I got to it I was excited to read it, whether it was a poem I already knew or one I’d never heard of before.
I also really appreciate that Nutt didn’t just pick well-known poems, although there are some in the book, but also that he didn’t just pick poems that he loves. There are poems such as Vicki Feaver’s The Gun which he has issues with but still felt it warranted being read and explored in this book. The selection really made me think about my own reactions to the poems individually and as a whole as I got further into this book, and left me mulling over my thoughts long after I’d finished reading.
I think the chapter that grabbed me the most was the one about Holly McNish. I’d heard of her before but had never read (or watched her perform) her poetry before. I was fascinated by her poem Famous For What? and am definitely going to buy one or two of her collections very soon. I also very much enjoyed the chapter on Rita Dove’s The Bistro Styx, and the comparisons with Philip Larkin’s Church Going so I will be seeking out more of her work too.
I also want to mention the chapter on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I had to study this poem in my second year at secondary school and I hated it! I loved English, it was my favourite subject and I loved reading but the way the teacher taught us that poem made it feel never-ending and unbearable. I’ve loathed it ever since because it always takes me back to those lessons. However, Nutt’s exploration of this poem has made me see it in a different light – I’ve since sought out my copy and re-reading it now as a 40 year old I found so much more in it and I’m so glad that I had my eyes opened to it.
I’ve always been much more drawn to poems that make me feel something. Often poems that make me cry are the ones that stay with me. I feel like this book has reminded me that different poems bring out different emotions and that I should be more open-minded and actually have more faith in my own abilities to find things in poems from now on.
I do have to quickly mention how beautiful this book is. It’s a gorgeous hardback and the endpapers have a lovely illustration of keys on them (which immediately made me feel that perhaps this book could unlock the world of poetry for me, and it did just that!).
I absolutely loved this book! I feel that it’s given me back the confidence to start picking up more poetry collections again and to spend time reading poems out loud and taking time to really think about them. Not only that, it’s made me excited to read poetry again! I’m so glad I read The Point of Poetry and I whole-heartedly recommend it!
This review was originally posted on my blog https://rathertoofondofbooks.com
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