by Burton Raffel
272pp.
Books that teach about poetry are written by people who are enthusiatic about poetry, and they often fall short because the writer spends too much time trying to generate a similar enthusiasm in the reader, and not enough time explaining how a poet does what he does. I'm sure that Burton Raffel is just as excited by poetry as the rest of them, but I'm glad to say that he never stumbles in this way. He wants his reader to understand how poetry works, and how it must be approached, but he leaves it to the reader to decide how much poetry is actually worth to him.
Raffel's approach is brilliant—he does not engage in long preparatory explanations, but gets on quickly with looking at the subject, illustrating each of his many points with a short poem. A good example is the very first poem he analyzes, two stanzas of four lines each by Robert Frost. I'm sure that there is much that can be said about the poem, but Raffel looks at it just long enough to make one important point—and then it's on to another poem, and another point.
I'll confess that I am not very enthusiastic about poetry, and can't imagine reading it for enjoyment. However, I realize that much valuable writing comes in the form of poetry, and that poetic techniques are used by writers other than poets, so I want to know enough about how poetry works that I'll be able to approach a poem on its own terms, and to at least understand and appreciate it. Raffel's book taught me what I needed to know, and I'm thankful for that.
Caution. Much of the poetry written since 1700 or so has been infected by Romanticism, and so frequently the poems in this book are about romantic love. The language is not obscene, and in general not offensive, but it is often suggestive of sexual matters, more explicitly so in the 20th century poems. Since families differ in what they consider proper for their children to read, we recommend that you look at each poem at least briefly before assigning it; there are enough of them that it won't hurt to just skip the ones you aren't comfortable with.
Related books
