Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems
Author: Stephanie Burt
Publisher: Basic Books
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Cover Description
An award-winning poet offers a brilliant introduction to the joys — and challenges — of the genre
In Don't Read Poetry, award-winning poet and literary critic Stephanie Burt offers an accessible introduction to the seemingly daunting task of reading, understanding, and appreciating poetry. Burt dispels preconceptions about poetry and explains how poems speak to one another — and how they can speak to our lives. She shows readers how to find more poems once they have some poems they like, and how to connect the poetry of the past to the poetry of the present. Burt moves seamlessly from Shakespeare and other classics to the contemporary poetry circulated on Tumblr and Twitter. She challenges the assumptions that many of us make about "poetry," whether we think we like it or think we don't, in order to help us cherish — and distinguish among — individual poems.
A masterful guide to a sometimes confounding genre, Don't Read Poetry will instruct and delight ingénues and cognoscenti alike.
TL;DR Review
Don’t Read Poetry is not quite the reading-poetry-how-to I’d expected, but I’m so glad I picked it up; it is an homage to the world of poetry that’s a delight to read.
For you if: You have a basic handle on how poetry “works” and want to go a bit deeper.
Full Review
One of my intentions this year is to become more familiar with and comfortable in the world of poetry. I started with Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Poetry Like a Professor, which I definitely recommend if you feel like a poetry noob — like you’re sure there’s a level to poetry you’re not picking up on when you read it.
I hoped that Don’t Read Poetry would be similar, but one level deeper — a natural progression. And while it was not similar or quite what I’d expected, it was a good progression in my poetry journey. Stephanie Burt is a real expert here, writing with a casual confidence that feels accessible but also makes it clear how much she loves the form and knows about the poetry world. Instead of talking about rhyme, then meter, then line breaks, etc, she examines poetry through murkier, more wiggly lenses: emotion, character, form, wisdom, and community. She uses excellent examples — classic and contemporary and everywhere in between — and examines them with care and clarity.
I did find that the chapters were long, and at times I wished that they had been broken up into subsections or maybe just more section breaks than they had. But still, I love that I encountered this book so early in my poetry journey, because I think it helped break apart what could have become an over-focus on technique in my understanding of poems. I don’t think this book is best for someone who still feels like they need poetry level 1. But truly, it was great for level 2. If you’re looking to learn more about poetry, pick this one up.