--- product_id: 11036099 title: "How to Read a Poem" price: "£32.42" currency: GBP in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/11036099-how-to-read-a-poem store_origin: GB region: United Kingdom --- # How to Read a Poem **Price:** £32.42 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** How to Read a Poem - **How much does it cost?** £32.42 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.uk](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/11036099-how-to-read-a-poem) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Lucid, entertaining and full of insight, How To Read A Poem is designed to banish the intimidation that too often attends the subject of poetry, and in doing so to bring it into the personal possession of the students and the general reader. Offers a detailed examination of poetic form and its relation to content. Takes a wide range of poems from the Renaissance to the present day and submits them to brilliantly illuminating closes analysis. Discusses the work of major poets, including John Milton, Alexander Pope, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, W.H.Auden, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, and many more. Includes a helpful glossary of poetic terms. Review: Rent - Language was exquisite Review: Perfectly formed and delivered introduction to poetry reading - What a feast one finds here for the lover and budding lover of poetry. This fascinating and engaging book, complex but clear, is designed as an introduction to poetry for both students and interested readers, but is rather more than that. It begins with interesting discussions on the 'end of criticism,' 'politics and rhetoric,' the 'death of experience' and 'imagination.' From here, Eagleton dives into poetry's relations: to prose, morality, fiction, pragmatism and language. A look at the Formalists is followed by an extended discussion on meaning and form. Eagleton then provides some discussion of poetry in performance and two American examples of critical analysis before walking us through the reader's and analyst's magic land of measures for exploration and enjoyment - a poem's tone, mood, intensity, texture, ambiguity, rhyme, rythm and meter, imagery, syntax, grammar and punctuation. He ends the book with a separate section in which he discusses four nature poems. Overall, a wonderful book of a timeless quality, useful as a guide for both the reader and the writer. I found this book so helpful as a guide to modern poetry criticism and analysis. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #815,174 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #845 in General Books & Reading #920 in Poetry Literary Criticism (Books) #1,075 in Poetry Anthologies (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.3 out of 5 stars 117 Reviews | ## Images ![How to Read a Poem - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71BLXv5J2tL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rent *by D***D on October 18, 2014* Language was exquisite ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Perfectly formed and delivered introduction to poetry reading *by J***E on March 27, 2010* What a feast one finds here for the lover and budding lover of poetry. This fascinating and engaging book, complex but clear, is designed as an introduction to poetry for both students and interested readers, but is rather more than that. It begins with interesting discussions on the 'end of criticism,' 'politics and rhetoric,' the 'death of experience' and 'imagination.' From here, Eagleton dives into poetry's relations: to prose, morality, fiction, pragmatism and language. A look at the Formalists is followed by an extended discussion on meaning and form. Eagleton then provides some discussion of poetry in performance and two American examples of critical analysis before walking us through the reader's and analyst's magic land of measures for exploration and enjoyment - a poem's tone, mood, intensity, texture, ambiguity, rhyme, rythm and meter, imagery, syntax, grammar and punctuation. He ends the book with a separate section in which he discusses four nature poems. Overall, a wonderful book of a timeless quality, useful as a guide for both the reader and the writer. I found this book so helpful as a guide to modern poetry criticism and analysis. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Without the clutter, a tour de force of close reading *by F***. on April 3, 2009* Eagleton writes well, no one denies that. And he's got some trenchant observations and good analytical skills. But his books do seem to pump out very familiar themes to an Eagleton reader, such as Marxist literary criticism and the Russian Formalists, with very little variations on those themes. And he seems to over-elaborate many sentences and many arguments, fiddling around with a single idea but expressing it in twenty different ways, one after another, swooning with uncertain effects at times. The book is at its most superfluous in the chapter on Russian formalists (chapter 3), which could be amputated painlessly. One could also lop off chapter 1 with little inconvenience, and weed off from Chapter 4 anything other than Eagleton's close readings. What would be left after doing all that is a superb work of applied literary criticism. And some readings ARE superb. He applies finely-tuned reading techniques to a number of poets, and the result is a thrilling encounter with multiple meanings, provocative interpretations, an array of techniques and effects working deftly together. In short, what studying literature is all about. Just for that, How to Read a Poem is worth it. And for brilliant phrases like this one: "In everyday life, talking about imaginary people as though they were real is known as psychosis; in universities, it is known as literary criticism" (p. 22). --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/11036099-how-to-read-a-poem](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/11036099-how-to-read-a-poem) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Kingdom* *Store origin: GB* *Last updated: 2026-06-24*