Don’t Read Poetry

Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems by Stephanie Burt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this once and then I read it again. It’s a library book; the library has stopped taking books back for now, due to Covid-19, so after it had been sitting on my table for awhile I decided to read it a second time. The first time I thought it was disjointed, but now the pieces begin to come together. I’m glad to know Stephanie Burt. She’s an influential poet-critic-professor but she’s not writing from a high place. She often writes in first person, and she addresses the reader directly. She doesn’t offer complete poems with commentary. Rather, she shows ways poems can please (6 categories— feeling, character, technique, difficulty, wisdom, community) and offers pieces of poems from many eras as examples. The book is a guide and invitation to finding poems you like, with assurance that the more you know of poetry the more you will like and sometimes love.


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