The Poem

Illuminating and authoritative treatise on 'how a poem works', from the multi-award-winning poet, editor and professor of poetry – now in paperback.

The Poem attempts to answer several questions: what is a poem? In what way is its use of language distinct? What conditions allow it to arise, and what is its cultural purpose? And how, exactly, do poems work? Part polemic, part technical treatise and part meditation, The Poem is an ambitious contemporary ars poetica. Paterson looks at the wr...