Literary Criticism, Poetry

Indian Angles
English Verse in Colonial India from Jones to Tagore
By Mary Ellis Gibson

Indian Angles is a new historical approach to Indian English literature. It shows that poetry, not fiction, was the dominant literary genre of Indian writing in English until 1860 and re-creates the historical webs of affiliation and resistance that writers in colonial India—writers of British, Indian, and mixed ethnicities—experienced.

A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke
Edited by William Barillas
· Foreword by Edward Hirsch

This timely and accessible companion to the work of twentieth-century American poet Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) gathers essays that illuminate his poetics, themes, and the contexts of his poems through the diverse critical approaches that have emerged in the past five decades.

Indian Angles
English Verse in Colonial India from Jones to Tagore
By Mary Ellis Gibson

Indian Angles is a new historical approach to Indian English literature. It shows that poetry, not fiction, was the dominant literary genre of Indian writing in English until 1860 and re-creates the historical webs of affiliation and resistance that writers in colonial India—writers of British, Indian, and mixed ethnicities—experienced.

Blank Verse
A Guide to Its History and Use
By Robert B. Shaw

With its compact but inclusive survey of more than four centuries of poetry, Blank Verse is filled with practical advice for poets of our own day who may wish to attempt the form or enhance their mastery of it. Enriched with numerous examples, Shaw’s discussions of verse technique are lively and accessible, inviting to all.

The Fin-de-Siècle Poem
English Literary Culture and the 1890s
Edited by Joseph Bristow

Featuring innovative research by emergent and established scholars, The Fin-de-Siècle Poem throws new light on the remarkable diversity of poetry produced at the close of the nineteenth century in England. Opening with a detailed preface that explains why literary historians have frequently underrated fin-de-siècle poetry, the collection shows how a strikingly rich body of lyrical and narrative poems anticipated many of the developments traditionally attributed to Modernism.

All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing
An Explanation of Meter and Versification
By Timothy Steele

Perfect for the general reader of poetry, students and teachers of literature, and aspiring poets, All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing is a lively and comprehensive study of versification by one of our best contemporary practitioners of traditional poetic forms.

Word Play Place
Essays on the Poetry of John Matthias
Edited by Robert Archambeau

The poetry of John Matthias has long been admired by other poets for the way it refuses to be categorized. Lyrical and experimental, cosmopolitan and rooted in place, it challenges our received notions of what poetry can be at the end of the twentieth century. This volume introduces the work of this significant American poet to readers previously unfamiliar with it and enriches the reading of those who have long admired it.

Private Poets, Worldly Acts
Public and Private History in Contemporary American Poetry
By Kevin Stein

At a time when poets appear tragically detached from the public for which they write, Kevin Stein persuasively demonstrates in Private Poets, Worldy Acts the way a particular group of diverse poets have manifested their communal concerns. As Choice wrote, “Stein’s graceful text is a primer on the relationship of the (American) poetic to the political.”Looking

American and British Poetry
A Guide to the Criticism, 1979-1990
By Harriet Semmes Alexander

This reference volume is a supplement to Alexander’s earlier work covering the years 1928–1978. Its purpose is to provide access to articles, parts of articles, and parts of books of criticism on British and American poets. No other index or bibliography reaches this level of comprehensiveness. The focus is on journals and books that are widely held by academic libraries. Arrangement is alphabetical by poet’s name and then by the title of the poem.

Zen, Poetry, the Art of Lucien Stryk
Edited by Susan Porterfield

Lucien Stryk has been a presence in American letters for almost fifty years. Those who know his poetry well will find this collection particularly gratifying. Like journeying again to places visited long ago, Stryk’s writing is both familiar and wonderfully fresh.For those just becoming acquainted with Stryk’s work, Zen, Poetry, the Art of Lucien Stryk makes an excellent introduction.

James Wright
The Poetry of a Grown Man; Constancy and Transition in the Work of James Wright
By Kevin Stein

Although some critics have identified two phases in the poetry of James Wright and have isolated particulars of his movement from traditional to more experimental forms, few have noted also the elements of constancy in the evolution of his poetry.

American and British Poetry
A Guide to the Criticism, 1925–1978
By Harriet Semmes Alexander

Critical essays provide sources for stimulating new thoughts and perspectives on poetry. Finding such essays on specific poems can be a frustrating experience for the scholar or the student. American and British Poetry: A Guide to the Criticism, 1925–1978 guides the researcher quickly to relevant sources of critical writing.Harriet