Customer Reviews

The Poetry Reader's Toolkit: A Guide to Reading and Understanding Poetry

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A few days ago, a student in my community college class discovered this book and brought it to my attention. It's just what she needed and what I've been looking for--an easy to read guide to poetry that opens both readers and poems in such a way that the barriers that too often exist between them dissolve. The book serves as a friendly companion or guide in unfamiliar territory might--it points out features our eyes or ears might miss but never loses patience if we are slow to understand their significance. I will be recommending this book to other instructors and students--and I'll have more to say about it when I've had a chance to work with it some more.

If the world made sense, this fine book would be found not only in every high school and college library, but in a lot of family homes as well, right next to the child-rearing guides and home fix-it guides. For in a world that made sense, a lot more people would grasp the transformative power of poetry and be passing on what they knew about it to their kids - and if they didn't know much, they could just pass on this book. Neither sentimental nor haughty about his subject, Polonsky manages to analyze both famous and lesser known poems, sometimes in great detail, without killing them off. This is a rare capacity that depends equally on his common sense, practiced insight, and clear, straight-ahead writing style.

Available in both student and instructor editions, this "toolkit" covers all the necessary fundamentals, and it's significant that "Emotions" is the first one explored - well before the discussions of sound, symbolism, verse forms and other technical aspects are taken up. That's because Polonsky has his ducks in a row and his heart in the right place, and that's what infuses the laudable competence of this manual with an irrepressible spirit. "I think poetry is just about as essential as air," Polonsky declares. "I believe that much of the violence and psychological illness and unease in our society is probably due to poetry deprivation."

This is obviously not your high school English teacher talking, but a man on a passionate mission. If this book gets spread around like it should, the world just might start making sense.

I was hungry to learn poetry. It always seemed a puzzle that was never quite solved. So, for Christmas, I hinted for a book about how to read/write poetry. Santa read my list (thanks sis) and got my wish:) This book was a joy to read. It unlocked many of mysteries of poetry for me and gave me a wonderful preparation before I dived head first into this mysterious pool of poetry.

I am so pleased that this book is still in print and that it is still being read. I was given what my high school poetry teacher affectionately called "Our Toolkit" when I was 17 and insecure and intimidated, pretty much by everything, but I thought that literature could be one place--perhaps the only place--where I might feel safe.

We read and used "The Poetry Reader's Toolkit" throughout the year. Never had I experienced a class where such intimacy was shared. The book is approachable but never trite, deep but never condescending. I found that I came to agree with the author that "Poetry is just about essential as air." The straight forward progression of understanding, the patient urge to "unearth" the poems through basic questioning, the direct and beautifully exemplified use of poetic terms, and above all the great variety of poetry included didn't just make me feel more safe--it made me feel, I think, less alone. I loved our toolkit so much that I asked if I could buy it and keep it. I did.

Ten years later, I'm toiling over an intensive 4-week-semester required Introduction to Literature course that begins tomorrow at a community college where I teach in Manhattan. I've been procrastinating like a pro all summer, and especially in the Poetry department, for since my high school days I've shrunk from poetry and veered toward fiction. I was going through my books all weekend for some semblance of thought about how to teach poetry when I feel so far from it myself. Past semesters have not proved easy, and students approach poetry with even less enthusiasm than they approach the first day of my class. I was just about to give up, when there it was: Our Toolkit with its bright cover, somehow barely scarred by the 9 times I've packed up books in boxes to move around the country for ten years. It survived. I read the first chapter and just knew that this book would see me through my fears about teaching poetry and maybe even see my students through their fears and reservations about reading it. I guess we'll see. The toolkit will be my guide and their guide, and maybe just one student will end up feeling as safe as I did at 17 when I was given this book.