The Cambridge guide to reading poetry / Andrew Hodgson.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 238-240) and index.

Introduction: Reading poetry. Using this book ; Why read poetry? ; What is a poem? ; Understanding poetry ; Connecting with poetry -- 1. Reading a poem. What does the poem say? ; How does the poem begin? ; What kind of poem is it? ; What is the poem about? ; What language does the poem use? ; Do we need a dictionary? ; How does the poem develop? ; How does the syntax shape the sense? ; Is the sense clear? ; How is the sense organized into lines? ; does the sense flow over the line endings? ; How do the lines move? ; What are the rhythms within the lines? ; How can we describe the rhythms? ; Do the lines play variations on the metre? ; How doe the metre give character to the poem? ; Does the poem rhyme? ; What kinds of rhyme does the poem use? ; How does the poem sound? ; What is the poem's form? ; Is the poem composed in blank verse? ; Is the poem in rhyming couplets? ; Is the poem composed in stanzas? ; Is the poem in free verse? ; Who is speaking? ; does the poem dramatise a voice? ; Who does the poem address? ; What is the poem's tone? ; How does the poem convey feeling? ; How does the poem handle images? ; Does the poem use figurative language? ; Does the poem tell a story? ; How does the poem depict character? ; When was the poem written? ; How does the poem balance the old and the new? ; How does the poem end? -- 2. Studying a poet. Reading Emily Bronte ; Reading about Emily Bronte ; Reading criticism ; reading a contemporary poet: Srinivas Rayaprol -- 3. Writing about poetry. Whose voice should you use? ; How do you develop ideas? ; What are you trying to achieve? ; What sort of plan should you make? ; How should you begin? ; Informing and arguing ; The body of the essay ; How should you end? ; How should you review your work? -- Epilogue: What should you read? -- Glossary of common forms and genres -- Further reading -- Copyright permissions -- Index.

"In an episode of the British sitcom Peep Show, the hapless layabout Jez sits with a copy of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, which he has acquired in a bid to impress a woman. Struggling over the novel's opening pages, he turns to his flatmate Mark and asks in a puzzled and fragile voice, 'How do you read?' It is a comically simple question for a man in his thirties to ask, but it is also a good one. I think the answer has two parts. The first is to allow a poem to absorb our attention - to cut out distraction and concentrate on the aesthetic, emotional, and conceptual experience that the words afford. Jez struggles with this because he has the television on in the background ('everything bad begins with "turn the telly off" ... '), and we will struggle, too, the more distractions we have to hand. Find a quiet, comfortable space, exercise patience, and we will soon find ourselves grateful to immerse ourselves in contemplation of the words on the page. The second part, which a book such as this can do more to help with, involves reflecting on the experience of reading in ways that refine and deepen our appreciation of it. And that process of reflection might itself be divided up. First, it involves establishing accurately and in detail what is there on the page in front of us; it is an act of description"--