Reading Poetry

Peter Barry is Professor of English at Aberystwyth University

• Introduction: ‘One small step’READING THE LINES 1. Meaning 2. Imagery 3. Diction 4. Metre 5. FormREADING BETWEEN THE LINES6. Close and distant reading7. Feeling and sentiment8. Text and context 9. Poems and pictures 10. Sequences and clusters READING BEYOND THE LINES11. Place and time 12. Poetry with theory13. Minimalism and micro-poetry14. Concrete canticles15. Textual genesisEnd-noteList of poems discussedGlossaryFurther readingIndex

Peter Barry's Reading poetry succeeds in the most difficult of tasks: it is at once introductory, sure to help novice students of poetry find their way through what may seem a bewildering maze of "poetic" features, and yet advanced enough to challenge the most sophisticated reader. It moves outward from the poetry building blocks - line, meter, image - to questions of poetry and visuality, poetry and space-time, poetry and theory. Commonsensical, wise, witty and open-minded, Reading poetry draws on an impressively wide set of examples, from Thomas Wyatt to such experimentalists as Tom Raworth. This wonderfully unpretentious book is a classic of its kind. Professor Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University 'Lingering over poems rather than excerpting them to define terms, Peter Barry's Reading poetry discusses a range of strategies for reading and interpreting poetry, quietly making a strong case for the value of reading poetry while leaving behind the methods and terminological overload that put off many readers. Reading poetry works as an introduction to poetry but has much to offer more practiced readers too. Barry's short chapters on diction, concrete poetry, text and context, reading with theory and other subjects probe poems beyond the standard fare, and the humility of his approach to his subjects will surely encourage readers.' Professor Keith Tuma, Miami University -- .