The Poetry Toolkit: The Essential Guide to Studying Poetry

Book excerpt: With examples from an extensive range of poets from Chaucer to today, The Poetry Toolkit offers simple and clear explanations of key terms, genres and concepts that enable readers to develop a richer, more sophisticated approach to reading, thinking and writing about poems. Combining an easy-to-use reference format defining and illustrating key concepts, forms and topics, with in-depth practice readings and further exercises, the book helps students master the study of poetry for themselves. Now in its second edition, The Poetry Toolkit includes a wider range of examples from contemporary poetry and more American poetry. In addition, an extended close reading section now offers practice comparative readings of the kind students are most likely to be asked to undertake, as well as readings informed by contemporary environmental and urban approaches. The book is also supported by extensive online resources, including podcasts, weblinks, guides to further reading and advanced study guides to reading poetry theoretically.