A Poet's Ear: A Handbook of Meter and Form

Praise for Annie Finch

“A self-proclaimed ‘postmodern poetess,’ Annie Finch lives up to the moniker, presenting a simultaneously thorough and mercurial array of musings on poetics focusing on form and meter, remaining three beats ahead of the rank-and-file herd of traditional prosodists.”
—Art New England

For beginning or advanced students of poetry focused on the art of structuring a poem, A Poet’s Ear serves as a handbook to writing in numerous fixed forms. Here, Annie Finch’s remarkably in-depth introduction to poetic form in English opens a new and exciting world to contemporary poets. From the basic meters and traditional European forms of the ballad and the sonnet to poetic forms brought to English from worldwide cultures and postmodern forms and techniques, A Poet’s Ear serves as both a survey and a guide to the exploration of poetic form. More diverse and comprehensive than any other form handbook, A Poet’s Ear will be essential to the serious student of poetry.