Reading poems is not as straightforward as reading traditional prose. Here are some books to help people new to reading poetry decipher and understand the different parts that make up a poem.
The Poetry Reader's Toolkit: A Guide to Reading and Understanding Poetry by Marc Polonsky breaks down how to read and interpret a poem. Each chapter focuses on a different element of poems, such as emotions, images, sound, metaphors, and literary devices.
How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch uses selected poems to guide readers through how to interpret both the meaning and the elements of the poem. He is clear that this is only a guide and helps readers develop their own interpretations of these poems.
The Poetry Handbook: A Guide to Reading Poetry for Pleasure and Practical Criticism by John Lennard is a guide to show readers how to read poems with a critical eye. Lennard showcases a poem's different elements such as metre, form, layout, punctuation, lineation, rhyme, diction, and syntax.
The Art of Reading Poetry by Harold Bloom has decades of experience teaching literary criticism and this book shows his passion while teaching readers how to look at a poem's voice, metaphor, and allusion.
Want to learn more about poetry? Check out our Poetry guides.
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