"[An] inviting guide to an art form often seen as abstruse... At once erudite and colloquial, the book resists prescriptive judgments, teems with surprising juxtapositions, and evokes the contagious enthusiasm of a cool teacher."—New Yorker
"[T]here are some empowering concepts and more than a few compelling arguments should you decide to approach Don't Read Poetry . . . with an open mind, a gracious ear, and a loving heart."—New York Journal of Books
"Charming...Burt is a delightful companion who reminds us that poems go down a lot better if we read them out loud and slowly...The whole idea of Don't Read Poetry is not only to celebrate the freedom and inventiveness in poems...but also to connect poems to a larger world of beauty."—The Christian Science Monitor
"Burt is well-suited to convince even the most skeptical readers that poems, indeed, should be read by everybody."—Booklist (starred review)
"In this eloquent literary primer, Burt...contends with poetry's reputation for inaccessibility...[A] sweeping, insightful survey."—Publisher's Weekly
"Don't Read Poetry is for readers hunting sharp, nimble thinking about culture, comprehension, and poems. Whether discussing an ancestral Hawaiian language, a canonical poet like Langston Hughes, or contemporary poets like Rodrigo Toscano and Jennifer Chang, Stephanie Burt manages to illuminate 'the difficult process of turning paired marks into words.' Don't read poetry, she suggests, read poems. This is a book for anyone who reads with curiosity, care and imagination."—Terrance Hayes, author of American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
"When I began Stephanie Burt's Don't Read Poetry, I fully expected her to widen and deepen my appreciation of this art form. Burt is, after all, a masterful poet, teacher, and literary critic. What I didn't necessarily expect was that I'd have such a great time absorbing what she has to say. Whether you love poetry or resist it, you will enjoy this entertaining and enlightening book."—Wally Lamb
"For the past fifty years, poetry critics have battled over what poetry is, which poets mattered, and which didn't. Stephanie Burt says they had it wrong. Don't read poetry, this dedicated pluralist tells us, if by poetry you mean one thing. If however you want to read poems, and discover the manifold ways they can be and help readers to be good (for Burt's aesthetic vision is ultimately ethical), read this lucid, informed, and deeply humane book."—Langdon Hammer, author of James Merrill: Life and Art
★ 06/01/2019
If good criticism opens windows and lets light in, and great criticism sheds a light of its own, Burt (English, Harvard Univ.; poetry coeditor, the Nation) is a solar-powered 1,000-watt bulb. The provocative title refers to the author's theory that we don't read "poetry" but rather specific and individual poems, her goal being to show readers how to do this more effectively. With insight and expertise, Burt illuminates the shadowy corners of this mysterious art, demonstrating time and again that there is nothing to fear! Six bountiful chapters introduce an array of poets (many contemporary) and offer tips on ways to approach poetry and why we should: poetry helps to make us better humans and broadens our awareness of a vast diversity of thought, bearing the timeless (and sometimes ineffable) wisdom of the world's greatest minds: Homer, Sappho, Shakespeare, Blake, Dickinson, Whitman, Moore, Williams, Ammons, Oliver, and Youn (among them). Periodically, this reader wished Burt would have taken a breath and let us appreciate what she's helped us see. And yet, her generosity, clarity, and open-hearted good sense triumph and may even draw in new readers to appreciate the skills of the literary critic. VERDICT A wonderful guide to a misunderstood art. Essential for all libraries.—Herman Sutter, St. Agnes Acad., Houston