Poetry:The Basics

The author’s primary aim in this book is to ‘enhance the pleasure that readers gain from poetry ’ (p. viii), but he also wishes to contribute to the expertise of the novice poet. Thus this small but dense volume is intended as both a manual for creative writing and a guide to the student of poetry. To achieve his aims, Wainwright discusses all the formal aspects of poetry – including tone, metre, rhyme and stanza patterns – but equally important are the dozens of examples he draws from poetry through the centuries which serve to sensitize the reader to the many nuances of meaning achieved through the poets ’ manipulation of language. What emerges above all is Wainwright’s great enthusiasm for and exceptionally wide-ranging knowledge of poetry in English. Following a brief introduction that provides an overview of the topics covered in the book, the second chapter examines ‘deliberate space’, an interesting and original perspective which focuses on features of orality as well as the visual space of poetry. Wainwright illustrates how, beyond serving to denote objects and carry information, language may be a pure and simple pleasure on the tongue o