A Poet's Guide to Poetry

Introduction: The Enchantment of the Work
Writing the Poem You Read: A View of the Artistic Process
Part I: The Elements of Relation and Resemblance
Line and Half-Meaning
Syntax and Whole Meaning
Diction and Layers in Meaning
Trope and Thought
Rhetoric and Speech
Rhythm as Combination

Part II: The Elements, Controlled in Time
Accentual-Syllabic Meter: The Role of Stress and Interval
Stanza and Rhyme: The Role of Echo
Further Rhythms in English—Counted Forms: Accentual Verse and Syllabic Verse (including Haiku)
Further Rhythms in English—Non-Counted Forms:
The Four Freedoms of Free Verse

Part III: Writing in Form
Exercises for Beginning and Advanced Writers
Poetic Terms
Annotated Bibliography of Further Reading