Rules For The Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse

This is a good book, but I've found others to be more engaging when teaching poetry. Stephen Fry wrote a delightful book on the craft, The Ode Less Traveled, and Ted Kooser wrote a great book on writing poetry. I'd go to those first.

This book is awesome! I already have two of her others and they are all excellent! Highly recommended! Thank you!

Mary Oliver brings to this small book all the clarity and economy that characterize her poetry, and produces the most plain-spoken, profound work that I have read on poetry as a conscious craft. The book is divided into five parts. Part One is 12 brief, carefully-exampled chapters with titles like "Breath", "Line Length", and "Meter in Non-Metric Verse". Part Two is a single chapter on "Style". Part Three explores scansion for both reader and writer. Part Four is a 2-page statement of the timelessness of poetry. Part Five is a fine little anthology of works studied in the earlier text. This austere, remote poet has written a book that speaks to the reader with great intimacy and passion. To quote from Oliver's envoi: "No poet ever wrote a poem to dishonor life, to compromise high ideals, to scorn religious views, to demean hope or gratitude, to argue against tenderness, to place rancor before love, or to praise littleness of soul. Not one. Not ever."

Mary Oliver shines in this prose manual on the writing and issues of poetic composition. Her economy of words combines with an easy style to help an utter novice (like me) gain an understanding of the metric and rhyming tools involved. Clarity and suppleness of expression mark this book and I would recommend it to anyone who reads poetry or has an interest in trying their hand at writing.What you may enjoy the most is that Mary does not wander all about the landscape of poetry, but maintains a steady course and uses many pretty little examples to illustrate the concepts. The book is not long but is one of those gems that you will enjoy diving into from time to times for some thoughtful reading on poetics. The author's personality shines through the words - and there is no pretense here, just someone who loves and lives through words.Consider reading her Wild Geese if you haven't yet - a stunning beautiful piece of work.

Despite being an English lit major,a prolific reader of fiction and non-fiction, and a not too shabby piano player, I had never, until my encounter with Mary Oliver's careful, clear teaching style, understood how metric poetry links together attributes of both music and the written word.'Hell-o-o-! It's not so difficult to understand,' you say.Oh, but it has been,for me,stuck on the idea that the two arts are completely separate. They're not. In "Rules for the Dance..", Ms. Oliver illustrates how,in metric poetry,the dimensions of sound and rhythm (musicality) and lyrical words (assonance, aliteration, etc..)combine: one reads not only for comprehension of the artful words,but for the added emotional pleasure of hearing them in rhythmic sound patterns - metrics, which she defines in detail- the result being powerful poetry. I now 'get'the 'rules for the dance,' and you will too should you pick up this book with a mind to hear what is being said.

I bought this text in Kindle. Isitsuppied to look like the beginning of my sentence? Allthewordsrun together? With subscript and superscript letters? Ifsithenhowistheauthorable to explain anything?

This book is excellent for learning the art of poetry. I found the section on sonnets to be particularly helpful.

good book

A complete joy from start to finish. Obviously, like tonal music and figurative painting, metrical poetry is an art form that is seen as hopelessly dated by most current practitioners. But if you want to understand what Julia Donaldson is doing (as well as every major poet before 1950), here is a great place to start.

Love Mary Oliver, Brilliant book. Frances.

excellent does what its says on the cover

I am a new reader of poetry, and before reading Mary Oliver's handbook on metrical poetry, I was a complete newbie, clueless as to what I should look for in a good poem. Now, thanks to the careful and thoughtful explanations -- and the exercises, if I dare write poetry someday -- I can derive more pleasure from the poetry I read. As a student of literature, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lovely