How to use this book -- From sighs and groans to art: language as a medium of art -- Well of English undefiled: diction -- Breaking sense: line division; cadenced poetry; syllabic and quantitative meters -- Listening to all God's chillum: accentual meter -- Lisping in numbers: accentual syllabic meter -- Getting the beat: modern adaptations of accentual syllabic meter -- Ringing the changes: alliteration and sound echoes -- Sculp of rhyme: end rhymes -- Yard goods: verse paragraphs; stanzas; strophes -- Shape of human thought: fixed forms; the sonnet -- Loose ends; blank verse -- Carried away: free verse -- Flesh on the bones: imagery and symbolism -- Into the maelstrom: sensationalism in modern poetry -- In and out of the closet: finding an audience; publication -- Versification chart -- Index to terms -- Index to poets quoted -- Index to works of poetry quoted
Summary
Provides instruction in the mechanics and art of writing poetry
