Becoming Poetry: Poets and Their Methods

Winner of the Lewis P. Simpson Award

In Becoming Poetry, Jay Rogoff closely inspects the work of two dozen poets, his forebears and his contemporaries, to reveal how their poetry achieves its impact upon readers. His essays, drawn from more than twenty years of literary criticism, explore how the staying power of a poet’s work and the likelihood of its enjoying a lasting identification with its creator depend on the skilled manipulation of poetic technique. Considering how poetry can manifes...