Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Poetry Sources

I just wrote this as a comment over at Covington's and thought I'd drop it here to. My list of poetic form sources so far:

1 Adams, Stephen. Poetic Designs: An Introduction to Meters, Verse Forms, and Figures of Speech. (good but not spectacular)

2 Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. (good for what it was)

3 Baker, Russell, ed. The Norton Book of Light Verse. (kinda fun but not really helpful)

4 Barnet, Sylvan, Morton Berman, and William Burto. A Dictionary of Literary Terms. (functional)

5 Baron, Virginia Olsen. Sunset in a Spider Web: Sijo Poetry of Ancient Korea. (Sijo only but I really enjoyed it)

6 Deutsch, Babette. Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms. (functional)

7 Frost, Helen. Spinning Through the Universe: A Novel in Poems from Room 214. (Marketed to kids but more useful than some of the adult books)

8 Fuller, John ed. The Oxford Book of Sonnets. (Not really useful or enjoyable)

9 Gliori, Debi. The Doring Kindersley Book of Nursery Rhymes. (Nursery rhyme only)

10. Green, Percy B. A History of Nursery Rhymes. (same)

11 Gross, John, ed. The Oxford Book of Comic Verse. (somewhat useful; funnier than Baker's)

12 Hodgart, Matthew, ed. The Faber Book of Ballads. (Not really useful but interesting)

13 Kamens, Edward. Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry. (more critical than useful)

14 X.J. Kennedy. An Introduction to Poetry. (Good--made me go from disliking to liking Kennedy)

15 Lapides, Frederick R. and John T. Shawcross, eds. Poetry and Its Conventions: An Anthology Examining Poetic Forms and Themes. (Probably the best next to Turco's)

16 Lewis, D.B. Wyndham and Charles Lee, eds. The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse. (Not really useful but great to read)

17 Lipson, Greta Barclay. Poetry Writing Handbook: Definitions, Examples,Lessons. (functional)

18 Kathleen Morner and Ralph Rausch. From Absurd to Zeitgeist: The Compact Guide to Literary Terms. (not much to it but somewhat useful)

19 Opie, Iona and Peter. A Nursery Companion. (Nursery rhymes)

20 Padgett, Ron Ed. The Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms. (one of the most useful)

21 Paine, Jefferty ed. with Kwame Anthony Appiah, Sven Birkerts, Joseph Brodsky, Carolyn Force, et al. The Poetry of Our World: An International Anthology of Contemporary Poetry. (I'm glad I read through it but not really practical)

22 Stephens, Meic. A Dictionary of Literary Quotations. (I don't even know why I've got it on my citation list)

23 Strand, Mark and Eavan Boland. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. (not bad but more limited than I would have thought)

24 Strouf, Judie L.H. Literature Lover's Book of Lists: Serious Trivia for the Bibliophile. (fun/functional)

25 Turco, Lewis. The Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, and Scholarship. (Turco's other book--better put together than The Book of Forms but not as useful)

26 —. The New Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics.

27 Untermeyer, Louis. The Pursuit of Poetry. (Personally I found more in Turco but still a good source)

28 —. The Forms of Poetry: A Pocket Dictionary of Verse. (Basically a 1926 version of his other book)

29 Wells, Carolyn, ed. A Parody Anthology. (Parodies from 1914, most don't hold up)

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