The Poem's Heartbeat : A Manual of Prosody

The Poem's Heartbeat is a progressive, step-by-step introduction to prosody--the art and science of metrical composition in poetry. This second edition includes a new appendix of sample scansions, and a comprehensive index of poets and poems cited. "This intelligent, user-friendly book is a quality guide to rhyme, rhythm, meter, and form for students, experienced readers, and practitioners of poetry... The Poem's Heartbeat may well be the finest general book available on prosody."-Library Journal (starred review) "In lucid prose, Corn clears a straight path through the scansion of quantitative verse and free verse... A provocative, definitive manual on meter."Publishers Weekly "A lively and well-informed primer to prosody, a current hot topic in poetic studies. Corn's aim is to introduce the novice poet or student to the vocabulary and understanding of English prosody, from its basic rules and definitions to the complexities of how sound is measured in poetry. Recommended for all academic libraries, this book could only have been written by someone who cares about the details, the relation of sound to sense, and fine, clear expression."-Choice "The Poem's Heartbeat triumphs over the dryness-or supposed dryness-of the subject, treating every aspect of it with precision, dispatch, and apt illustration. That it is sorely needed in the present footless state of things goes without saying."-Richard Wilbur