A usable past Book

Kinda sexy.

While its a bit stuffy for my tastes, the sheer volume of poetic history (however shaded, but its attempts to include those from all ethnicities, classes, modes, is impressive). Sometimes, one just has to delve into these things and enter poetic theory for the hell of it. While you may not agree in approaching the writing of poetry this way, its interesting nonetheless.

Its easy to read for the most part. In some places, my eyes glazed over. But hold out for pretty good nuggets on the relationships between prominent poets you may not hear about otherwise.

Yeah, I'm still trying to save up some dough to buy this thing. It ain't cheap. Probably the only drawback.

Although all its talk of schools and styles made me sad and wish people would just shut up and write poetry.