An Introduction to Poetry [Paperback]

X. J. Kennedy (Author), Dana Gioia (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 032108764X | ISBN-13: 978-0321087645 | Publication Date: July 25, 2001 | Edition: 10th

While embracing the canon, An Introduction to Poetry, Tenth Edition includes an impressive collection of contemporary poems for a culturally diverse representation of authorship and a richness in range of style. Writer's Perspectives sections give commentary on the craft of writing and revising from authors, which provide insight and a more human perspective on literature and the writing process. Writing Critically sections expand overage of composition with accessible and pragmatic suggestions on writing. Critical Approaches to Literature section provides three essays on every major school of criticism with sections on gender criticism and cultural studies. New poems have been added to the Tenth Edition, along with a new Glossary of Literary Terms and an expanded chapter on translations. Casebooks on Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes present both poets in depth. For anyone interested in poetry.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

X. J. Kennedy, after graduation from Seton Hall and Columbia, became a journalist second class in the Navy (“Actually, I was pretty eighth class”). His poems, some published in the New Yorker, were first collected in Nude Descending a Staircase (1961). Since then he has written six more collections, several widely adopted literature and writing textbooks, and seventeen books for children, including two novels. He has taught at Michigan, North Carolina (Greensboro), California (Irvine), Wellesley, Tufts, and Leeds. Cited in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and reprinted in some 200 anthologies, his verse has brought him a Guggenheim fellowship, a Lamont Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an Aiken-Taylor prize, the Robert Frost Medal of the Poetry Society of America, and the Award for Poetry for Children from the National Council of Teachers of English. He now lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he and his wife Dorothy have collaborated on four books and five children.

 

Dana Gioia is a poet, critic, and teacher. Born in Los Angeles of Italian and Mexican ancestry, he attended Stanford and Harvard before taking a detour into business. (“Not many poets have a Stanford M.B.A., thank goodness!”) After years of writing and reading late in the evenings after work, he quit a vice presidency to write and teach. He has published three collections of poetry, Daily Horoscope (1986), The Gods of Winter (1991), and Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award; an opera libretto, Nosferatu (2001); and three critical volumes, including Can Poetry Matter? (1992), an influential study of poetry’s place in contemporary America. Gioia has taught at Johns Hopkins, Sarah Lawrence, Wesleyan (Connecticut), Mercer, and Colorado College.

 

He is also the co-founder of the summer poetry conference at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. From 2003-2009 he served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. At the NEA he created the largest literary programs in federal history, including Shakespeare in American Communities and Poetry Out Loud, the national high school poetry recitation contest. He also led the campaign to restore active and engaged literary reading by creating The Big Read, which has helped reverse a quarter century of decline in U.S. reading. He currently divides his time between Washington, D.C. and Santa Rosa, California, living with his wife Mary, their two sons, and two uncontrollable cats.

 

 

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: Longman; 10th edition (July 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 032108764X
• ISBN-13: 978-0321087645
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 6.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Is A Textbook?, May 25, 2004

By 

Robert Derenthal "bucherwurm" (California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Introduction to Poetry (Paperback)

Maybe I shouldn't have even used the term "textbook". After all that word generally connotes a book that is tedious, dry and full of obscure jargon. This is a different book, however. It is indeed a sprightly introduction to poetry that informs and entertains. It has sections on Irony, Tone, Words, Metaphors, Sound, Rhythm, Form, Symbol, Myth, and Narrative, just to mention a few.

The discussion of each topic is illustrated by the provision of relevant poems. The poems are generally analyzed, and the reader is asked pertinent questions about them. I can't praise the authors enough for their choice of poems. Most are relatively brief works, but they are excellent examples of the topic at hand.

What could be a better poem exemplifying Irony than this little classic deploring child labor written by Sarah N. Cleghorn in 1917:

The golf links lie so near the mill/That almost every day/The laboring children can look out/ And see the men at play.

There are many other goodies in this book:

1. A chapter that provides poems and brief critical essays on the works of Langston Hughes, and Emily Dickinson.
2. A section that provides brief but informative biographies of many of the poets represented in the book.
3. A large chapter of more poems for reading and enjoying. These are very accomplished poems that are generally very accessible to the general reader.
4. A section on literary criticism. Yes, I know that is a dreaded term, but the authors do a good job of clearly presenting the material -even when deconstructionism is the topic- and provide brief extracts from noted literary critics.
5. At the end of the book is a convenient glossary of literary terms.
6. For those who become enthused about writing poetry there is a chapter covering this topic.

There are other introductory books on the market (such as "The Poetry Reader's Toolkit", by Marc Polonsky, and the venerable "Understanding Poetry" by Cleanth Brooks), but this is a truly astounding work. It's a big book of over 700 pages that is guaranteed to make any reader a poetry lover..

22 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry clearly explained by poets, September 15, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Yakima, Washington) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Introduction to Poetry (Paperback)

A very usefull text for any level of student from Middle School to Phd- clear explanations of terms and traditions followed by excellent, provocative examples and follow up questions make the book work in the classroom (and as a means to teach yourself) what you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful textbook on poetry., November 3, 2006

By 

Robert Browning (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Introduction to Poetry (Paperback)

This was a wonderful book, very easy to read, and including hundreds of poems of all eras and genres... it provides a good education on poetic forms and ideas, with each chapter including many examples of the topic being discussed... and at the end there is a huge anthology of poems, many of which were new to me, which made it a real bonus.