An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art

A generic forms book with the same tired examples everyone else has already used. You're better off with a Norton Anthology (The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms), which will be far more informative and will use examples both classic and new.

great book

this is an indispensable book for my poetry practice...

Excellent text.

Some good essays, but most were undergraduate pieces from the 1950s,except the ideas were less compelling than they would have been in that era. Disappointing, but also revealing, because as always it would be better if poets just wrote poetry (unless your John Keats: see his letters) and stopped cluttering up the world with their prose.

Something that continually astounds me about the modern community of poets - particularly the ones you'll encounter in academia - is that they DO exalt form...but at the same time, the style is looked upon as somehow passé. As if these foundational poetic methods have...gone out of style? I certainly hope not. Meter and rhyme scheme provide a brilliant framework to create beautiful work. Annie Finch is a pioneer in the New Formalist movement, and this collection of works truly serves to demonstrate the rich tradition that all modern poetry is built atop. On the subject of feminism and formalism, one of the most beautiful ideas Finch presents in this (and other works) is that a female voice in this style is inherently innovative, because of the lack seen in previous generations. And while I absolutely adore the free verse styles employed in contemporary poetry, as an amateur poet, I find my own voice most liberated within the "boundary" of form.

AAA+++

Wow, this book has made quite an impression. There is nothing I can say to top what has been said already, but what I can do is add my two cents of approval. I actually prefer this book over Turco's Book of Forms. It reads better and explains the forms better. This books covers a wide variety of traditional and experimental forms of poetry. And Finch and Varnes pulled together a diverse group of poets, from R.S. Gwynn and Dana Gioia to Maxine Chernoff and DJ Renegade. From Anthony Hecht to Paul Hoover. There's Tim Steele, Jan Hodge, X.J. Kennedy, Agha Shahid Ali, Maxine Kumin, Charles Bernstein, adn Billy COllins. You get all styles of poets and poetry within. For any serious poet, this is a must have book. And it is loaded with great examples of each type it discusses.

The practical structure&approach using an essay from a poet protaginist therof,(with a few of their and others examples)makes this the most helpful and easy to follow guide of the many available to the serious student of poetic forms.The forms surveyed over the traditional ,across the spectrum to the avant-garde in the left field of poetry,under four main headings Meters/Stanzas/ Received forms/ Experimental.An excellent authorative primer on prosody,with a helpful introduction and biliography for further study.