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Suggested Readings
 

You should be familiar with at least some of these works before signing up for Formalista.

 
Basic Guides to Scansion, Metrical Terminology, and Poetic Forms
  • The Book of Forms (or The New Book of Forms), Lewis Turco
  • Rhyme's Reason, John Hollander
  • Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, Paul Fussell
  • Poetic Designs, Stephen Adams
  • The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry
  • Patterns of Poetry, Miller Williams
  • entries in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, eds.Alex Preminger & T.V.F. Brogan
  • Academy of American Poets Poetic Forms and Techniques page
  • The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms, ed. Ron Padgett
  • The Anatomy of Poetry, Marjorie Boulton
  • Timothy Steele's "Introduction to Meter" and "Introduction to Rhyme and Stanza" handouts
 
Intermediate Discussions of Formal Poetics, Scansion Methods, Theories of Versification
  • All The Fun's in How You Say a Thing, Timothy Steele
  • Meter and Meaning: An Introduction to Rhythm in Poetry, Derek Attridge
  • Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End, Barbara Herrnstein Smith
  • After New Formalism, Annie Finch
  • The Strict Metrical Tradition, David Keppel-Jones
 
Linguistic Matters
  • Linguistics and Literature, Nigel Fabb
  • You Just Don't Understand!, Deborah Tannen
 
Discussions of "Free Verse"
  • Missing Measures: Modern Poetry and the Revolt Against Meter, Timothy Steele
  • An Exaltation of Forms, eds. Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes
  • The Origins of Free Verse, H. T. Kirby-Smith
  • The Ghost of Meter: Culture and Prosody in American Free Verse, Annie Finch
 
Essays We Recommend
 
Non-English Meters and Forms
  • A Chronological Sketch of Castilian Versification, Dorothy Clotelle Clarke
 
Interviews