A comprehensive handbook or text on the subject of poetry. The author is an accomplished poet and teaching scholar. XJ Kennedy first addresses the "Student", then the Instructor -- and I have his Instructor's Manual. Then he addresses "the Muse" at her altar -- to "grant that in a flash/ They [Student devots and Instructors] and I, know incense from dead ash."

I was intrigued that the introduction proper to Poetry begins with "Entrances" before turning to "The Person in the Poem". Then "Words", moving through "Connotation and Allusion" to "Imagery", "Figures of Speech" [includes Metaphor, Simile, etc] and "Symbol and Allegory". Then three sections for morphological structures of "Sound", "Rhythm" and "Form". As a kind of expansion joint in the spine of the book, "Myth" with a theory of Archetypes. Then two chapters on "Evaluating Poetry" -- what flies and what flounders, and how to know excellence.

Hint - "most clerihews will yield their all at a single look", but when Butler Yeats sails to Byzantium, "That is no country for old men". Try for Aquinian Beauty - "having wholeness, harmony, and radiance".

Finally, XJ Kennedy then turns to "What is Poetry?" before presenting a selected Anthology of _____ [number?] the Professor notes that twelve poets were selected with seven or more poems each -- Shakespeare, Donne, Herrick, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Dickinson, Hopkins, Hardy, Yeats, Stevens, and Frost. In addition, the selection favors complex work, not the "hey nonny nonny" material of which little more can be said than "Look at this".

Glosses and slightly improved orthography ("rime" preferred to "rhyme") are provided, and an omnibus Index of Authors, Titles and First Lines. ( )

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