Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse

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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 194 pages
3 Reviews
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For both readers and writers of poetry, here is a concise and engaging introduction to sound, rhyme, meter, and scansion - and why they matter. "The dance, " in the case of this brief and luminous book, refers to the interwoven pleasures of sound and sense to be found in some of the most celebrated and beautiful poems in the English language, from Shakespeare to Edna St. Vincent Millay to Robert Frost. With a poet's ear and a poet's grace of expression, Mary Oliver helps us understand what makes a metrical poem work - and enables readers, as only she can, to "enter the thudding deeps and the rippling shallows of sound-pleasure and rhythm-pleasure."

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LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Bat - LibraryThing

Clear, lucid, downt-to-earth approach to reading and writing poetry expected of Mary Oliver. This book covers metrics in a nice friendly manner. Nice colection of 50 metrical examples. Not the be all and end all on the subject but a good introduction. Read full review

RULES FOR THE DANCE: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse

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Selected pages

Contents

Breath
3
Patterns
6
More About Patterns
19
Line Length
29
Release of Energy Along the Line
36
Rhyme
40
Traditional Forms
50
Words on a String
57
Mutes and Other Sounds
60
The Use of Meter in NonMetric Verse
62
The Ohs and the Ahs
65
ImageMaking
67
Reading the Metrical Poem
87
Then and Now
103
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

anapestic Beauty become begins breath bright Bring called Chambered Nautilus cloud comes completion composed course create dance Death deep double dream earth ease effect emphasis energy example eyes fall feel feet felt figure final fire five flow flowers foot Frost given gives hand hear heart Heaven heavy stress hour iambic language leaves length less light stress lips lived lonely look meaning meter metrical poem mind moon move natural needs never night occurs once pattern pentameter physical poetry poets reader rhyme rhythm Robert rules seems sense Shakespeare sing sleep sometimes song sonnet sound speak spirit stanza star style sweet syllable thee thing thou thought tone trees trochaic true verse voice wall wind wings woods words Wordsworth writing written

References to this book

About the author (1998)

A private person by nature, Mary Oliver (1935-2019) gave very few interviews over the years. Instead, she preferred to let her work speak for itself. And speak it has, for the past five decades, to countless readers. Over the course of her long and illustrious career, Oliver received numerous awards. Her fourth book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She also received the Shelley Memorial Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship; an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Achievement Award; the Christopher Award and the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for House of Light ; the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems ; a Lannan Foundation Literary Award; and the New England Booksellers Association Award for Literary Excellence.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Rules for the Dance
TitleRules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse
Mariner Books
Mariner original
AuthorMary Oliver
PublisherHoughton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998
ISBN039585086X, 9780395850862
Length194 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Language Arts & Disciplines / Writing / General
Literary Criticism / Poetry
Poetry / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
  
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