The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms

"Concise, learned, revisionary... should enrich the passionate conversation about poetic forms for years to come."― Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry

"A generous and exquisitely selective anthology of poetry forms that may make you decide to give up E-mail and start writing sestinas and villanelles."
― Francine Prose, Elle

"A marvelous new anthology... intended for readers daunted by terminology and complex poetic forms."
― Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"This is the book writers and readers, teachers and students, have been dreaming of―canny, generous, and practical, Boland and Strand are ideal guides through the golden labyrinth of poetry at its most ingenious and commanding. A marvelous collection!"
― J.D. McClatchy

"Much more poetry than commentary appears, making the book both a splendid classroom text and, since the selections are top-drawer poems by first-rate poets, a book any poetry lover or would-be poetry lover may learn from and love."
― Booklist

In the words of its editors, The Making of a Poem "looks squarely at some of the headaches and mysteries of poetic form." Here, two of our foremost poets provide a lucid, straightforward primer for those who have always felt that an understanding of form—sonnet, ballad, villanelle, sestina, etc.—would enhance their appreciation of poetry. By example and explanation, the anthology traces "the exuberant history of forms," a history that unites poets as diverse as John Keats and Joy Harjo (the Ode) or Geoffrey Chaucer and Jean Toomer (the Stanza). Each chapter is devoted to one form, offering explanation, close reading, and a rich selection of exemplars that amply demonstrate the power and possibility of the form.

Eavan Boland (1944―2020) was the author of more than a dozen volumes of poetry, including Outside History and several volumes of nonfiction, and was coeditor of the anthology The Making of Poem. Born in Dublin, Ireland, she was one of the foremost female voices in Irish literature. She received a Lannan Foundation Award and an American Ireland Fund Literary Award, among other honors. She taught at Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Bowdoin College, and Stanford University, where she was the director of the creative writing program.

Mark Strand (1934―2014) won the Pulitzer Prize for Blizzard of One and was Poet Laureate of the United States.