How Poems Get Made

A comprehensive guide to writing or reading poetry, by “one of our most lucid and important critics” (American Academy of Arts and Letters).

Why does a great lyric poem ask to be reread, even after we know it by heart? In How Poems Get Made, acclaimed poet and critic James Longenbach answers this question by discussing a wide range of exemplary poems, from Shakespeare through Blake, Dickinson, and Moore, to a variety of poets making poems today. In each chapter of How Poems Get Made, Longenb...