Mark StrandEavan BolandErnest DownsonEdwin Arlington RobinsonWilliam EmpsonTheodore RoethkeElizabeth BishopDylan ThomasJames MerrillMona Van DuynJohn HollanderHayden CarruthDaryl HineMarilyn HackerWendy CopeJacqueline OsherowElizabeth BishopEdmund SpenserPhilip SidneyBarnabe BarnesDante Gabriel RossettiAlgernon Charles SwinburneSir Edmund GosseRudyard KiplingEzra PoundWeldon KeesAnthony HechtMiller WilliamsAlberto RiosEzra PoundAustin DobsonDonald JusticeCarolyn KizerJohn AshberyNellie WongJ. D. McClatchyDonald JusticeWilliam ShakespeareMichael DraytonMary WrothJohn MiltonJohn DonneWilliam WordsworthPercy Bysshe ShelleyJohn KeatsChristina RossettiElizabeth Barrett BrowningGerard Manley HopkinsEdna St. Vincent MillayCountee CullenPatrick KavanaghE. E. CummingsGeorge BarkerJane CooperGwen HarwoodSeamus HeaneyDenis JohnsonHenri ColeMary Jo SalterMichael PalmerEdna St. Vincent MillayJohn Greenleaf WhittierOscar WildeElinor WylieLouis MacNeiceJohn BetjemanOgden NashGwendolyn BrooksSterling A. BrownW. S. MerwinGwendolyn BrooksHenry HowardChristopher MarloweWilliam ShakespeareJohn MiltonCharlotte SmithWilliam WordsworthLord Tennyson AlfredEdward ThomasRobert FrostRichard WilburRichard HowardRobert FrostAemilia LanyerAnne BradstreetAnne FinchJohn DrydenSamuel JohnsonPhillis WheatleyOliver GoldsmithAlexander PopeRobert BrowningWilfred OwenThom GunnRobert BrowningGeoffrey ChaucerEdmund SpenserThomas WyattGeorge HerbertWilliam BlakeGeorge GordonEmily DickinsonThomas HardyWalter de la MareCharlotte MewJean ToomerClaude McKaySara TeasdaleStevie SmithYvor WintersRobert HaydenMuriel RukeyserCarol Ann DuffyCarol MuskeEmily DickinsonWilliam DunbarMary Sidney HerbertBen JonsonKatherine PhilipsJohn MiltonAnne BradstreetThomas GrayEmily BronteWalt WhitmanMatthew ArnoldIvor GurneyJohn Crowe RansomLouise BoganW. H. AudenRobert LowellJohn BerrymanFrank BidartEdward HirschGarrett HongoDouglas CraseMark DotyGjertrud SchnackenbergThomas KinsellaDavid St. JohnPaula MeehanRosanna WarrenChristopher MarloweWilliam ShakespeareAndrew MarvellWilliam WordsworthJohn KeatsA. E. HousmanFrancis LedwidgeBabette DeutschJanet LewisTed HughesPhilip LarkinJames WrightDerek WalcottGalway KinnellAmy ClampittJane KenyonPhilip LevineRobert HassJohn KoetheAlfred CornCharles WrightLes MurrayLucie Brock-BroidoThylias MossC. K. WilliamsTimothy SteeleMary KinzieEilean Ni ChuilleanainLouise GluckMary OliverMedbh McGuckianSusan ProspereMary O'MalleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyJohn KeatsHenry TimrodHenry Wadsworth LongfellowHart CraneMarianne MooreJudith WrightCharles SimicHoward NemerovRobert CreeleyRobert PinskyJoy HarjoW. B. YeatsT. S. EliotLangston HughesWallace StevensWilliam Carlos WilliamsAllen GinsbergFrank O'HaraDenise LevertovSylvia PlathAdrienne RichLucille CliftonSharon OldsCarolyn ForcheAiYusef KomunyakaaJorie GrahamAdrienne Rich

Introductory Statement	p. xiii
On Becoming a Poet	p. xvii
Poetic Form: A Personal Encounter	p. xxv
Acknowledgments	p. xxxi
I Verse Forms
Overview	p. 3
The Villanelle
The Villanelle at a Glance	p. 5
The History of the Form	p. 6
The Contemporary Context	p. 8
Villanelle of His Lady's Treasures	p. 9
The House on the Hill	p. 9
Missing Dates	p. 10
The Waking	p. 11
One Art	p. 11
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night	p. 12
The World and the Child	p. 13
Condemned Site	p. 13
By the Sound	p. 14
Saturday at the Border	p. 15
Under the Hill	p. 16
Villanelle	p. 16
Reading Scheme	p. 17
Villanelle for the Middle of the Night	p. 18
Close-Up of a Villanelle: "One Art"	p. 19
The Sestina
The Sestina at a Glance	p. 21
The History of the Form	p. 22
The Contemporary Context	p. 24
Ye wastefull woodes, bear witness of my woe	p. 25
from Old Arcadia	p. 26
Sestine 4 from Parthenophil and Parthenophe	p. 27
Sestina: Of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni	p. 29
Sestina	p. 30
Sestina	p. 32
Sestina of the Tramp-Royal	p. 33
Sestina: Altaforte	p. 34
After the Trial	p. 36
The Book of Yolek	p. 37
The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina	p. 38
Nani	p. 39
Close-Up of a Sestina: "Sestina: Altaforte"	p. 41
The Pantoum
The Pantoum at a Glance	p. 43
The History of the Form	p. 44
The Contemporary Context	p. 45
In Town	p. 45
Pantoum of the Great Depression	p. 47
Parents' Pantoum	p. 48
Pantoum	p. 49
Grandmother's Song	p. 50
The Method	p. 51
Close-Up of a Pantoum: "Pantoum of the Great Depression"	p. 53
The Sonnet
The Sonnet at a Glance	p. 55
The History of the Form	p. 56
The Contemporary Context	p. 58
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?	p. 59
Farewell to Love	p. 59
from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus	p. 60
Sonnet XXIII: Methought I saw my late espoused saint	p. 60
Holy Sonnet: At the round earth's imagined corners	p. 61
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802	p. 61
Ozymandias	p. 62
Bright Star	p. 62
from Monna Innominata	p. 63
from Sonnets from the Portuguese (XLIII)	p. 63
Carrion Comfort	p. 64
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why	p. 64
From the Dark Tower	p. 65
Epic	p. 65
from "Tulips and Chimneys"	p. 66
To My Mother	p. 66
After the Bomb Tests	p. 67
A Game of Chess	p. 67
The Haw Lantern	p. 68
Heat	p. 68
The Roman Baths at Nimes	p. 69
Half a Double Sonnet	p. 69
Sonnet	p. 70
Close-Up of a Sonnet: "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why"	p. 71
The Ballad
The Ballad at a Glance	p. 73
The History of the Form	p. 74
The Contemporary Context	p. 77
The Cherry-tree Carol	p. 78
Sir Patrick Spens	p. 79
The Wife of Usher's Well	p. 81
My Boy Willie	p. 82
The Changeling	p. 83
from The Ballad of Reading Gaol	p. 86
Peter and John	p. 88
Bagpipe Music	p. 90
Death in Leamington	p. 91
The Tale of Custard the Dragon	p. 92
We Real Cool	p. 94
Riverbank Blues	p. 94
Ballad of John Cable and Three Gentlemen	p. 95
Close-Up of a Ballad: "We Real Cool"	p. 99
Blank Verse
Blank Verse at a Glance	p. 101
The History of the Form	p. 102
The Contemporary Context	p. 104
from his translation of The Aeneid	p. 105
from Tamburlaine the Great	p. 105
from Julius Caesar	p. 106
from Paradise Lost	p. 107
from Beachy Head	p. 108
from The Prelude	p. 109
Ulysses	p. 110
Rain	p. 112
Directive	p. 113
Lying	p. 114
Stanzas in Bloomsbury	p. 117
Close-Up of Blank Verse: "Directive"	p. 119
The Heroic Couplet
The Heroic Couplet at a Glance	p. 121
The History of the Form	p. 122
from The Description of Cooke-ham	p. 123
The Author to Her Book	p. 123
A Letter to Daphnis, April 2, 1685	p. 124
from Absalom and Achitophel	p. 125
from The Vanity of Human Wishes	p. 126
To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works	p. 127
from The Deserted Village	p. 128
from An Essay on Criticism	p. 129
My Last Duchess	p. 130
Strange Meeting	p. 132
The J Car	p. 133
Close-Up of the Heroic Couplet: "My Last Duchess"	p. 135
The Stanza
The Stanza at a Glance	p. 136
The History of the Form	p. 137
The Contemporary Context	p. 139
from Troilus and Criseyde	p. 140
from The Faerie Queene	p. 141
They Flee from Me	p. 142
Easter Wings	p. 143
The Tyger	p. 143
So We'll Go No More A-Roving	p. 144
I died for Beauty--but was scarce	p. 145
The Convergence of the Twain	p. 145
The Song of the Mad Prince	p. 146
A Quoi Bon Dire	p. 147
Song of the Son	p. 147
The Tropics in New York	p. 148
Night Song at Amalfi	p. 149
Not Waving but Drowning	p. 149
On Teaching the Young	p. 149
Those Winter Sundays	p. 150
Yes	p. 150
Warming Her Pearls	p. 151
Epith	p. 152
Close-Up of a Stanza: "I died for Beauty--but was scarce"	p. 154
II Meter
Meter at a Glance	p. 159
A Brief Checklist of Further Reading on Meter	p. 161
III Shaping Forms
Overview	p. 165
The Elegy
Overview	p. 167
Lament for the Makaris	p. 168
If Ever Hapless Woman Had a Cause	p. 171
On My First Son	p. 172
Epitaph. On her Son H.P. at St. Syth's Church where her body also lies Interred	p. 172
Lycidas	p. 173
Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666. Copied out of a Loose Paper	p. 178
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard	p. 180
R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida	p. 184
O Captain! My Captain!	p. 185
Dover Beach	p. 185
To His Love	p. 187
Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter	p. 187
Tears in Sleep	p. 188
In Memory of W. B. Yeats	p. 188
from The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket	p. 191
Dream Song 324	p. 194
To the Dead	p. 194
In Memoriam Paul Celan	p. 196
The Legend	p. 197
The Elegy for New York	p. 198
Tiara	p. 199
Supernatural Love	p. 200
Mirror in February	p. 202
Iris	p. 203
Child Burial	p. 204
Song	p. 205
The Pastoral
Overview	p. 207
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love	p. 209
from Love's Labor's Lost	p. 210
The Garden	p. 210
To My Sister	p. 213
Ode on a Grecian Urn	p. 214
Loveliest of Trees	p. 215
The Wife of Llew	p. 216
Urban Pastoral	p. 216
Remembered Morning	p. 217
The Thought-Fox	p. 217
The Explosion	p. 218
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota	p. 219
Midsummer, Tobago	p. 220
The Bear	p. 220
Fog	p. 223
Let Evening Come	p. 224
Smoke	p. 224
Meditation at Lagunitas	p. 226
From the Porch	p. 227
A Walrus Tusk from Alaska	p. 227
Looking West from Laguna Beach at Night	p. 228
The Broad Bean Sermon	p. 229
Of the Finished World	p. 230
Tornados	p. 231
Loss	p. 232
Waiting for the Storm	p. 233
An Engraving of Blake	p. 233
Pygmalion's Image	p. 233
Mock Orange	p. 234
The Black Walnut Tree	p. 235
Gateposts	p. 236
Heart of the Matter	p. 236
Shoeing the Currach	p. 238
The Ode
Overview	p. 240
Ode to the West Wind	p. 241
To Autumn	p. 243
Ode	p. 244
The Fire of Driftwood	p. 245
from The Bridge	p. 247
The Paper Nautilus	p. 248
Australia 1970	p. 249
Miracle Glass Co.	p. 250
The Blue Swallows	p. 250
America	p. 252
Ode to Meaning	p. 252
Perhaps the World Ends Here	p. 254
IV Open Forms
Overview	p. 259
The Circus Animals' Desertion	p. 260
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock	p. 262
I, Too	p. 266
The Idea of Order at Key West	p. 266
Spring and All	p. 268
America	p. 269
Ave Maria	p. 272
Uncertain Oneiromancy	p. 273
Daddy	p. 274
Diving into the Wreck	p. 276
Move	p. 279
The Language of the Brag	p. 280
The Colonel	p. 281
The German Army, Russia, 1943	p. 282
Starlight Scope Myopia	p. 282
Reading Plato	p. 284
Close-Up of Open Forms: "Diving into the Wreck"	p. 287
A Brief Glossary	p. 289
Biographies and Further Reading	p. 293
Suggested Reading	p. 335
Credits	p. 337
General Index	p. 349
Index of Authors, Titles, and First Lines	p. 357