Annie Finch
poet, writer, performer
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An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art

An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Annie Finch & Kathrine Varnes book cover

At once handbook, reader, and guide to the literary tastes and wisdom of poets, An Exaltation of Forms is an indispensable resource certain to find a dedicated audience among poetry lovers. Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes invited over fifty contemporary poets to select a poetic meter, stanza, or form, describe it, recount its history, and provide favorite examples. The essays represent a remarkably diverse range of literary styles and approaches, and show how the forms of contemporary English-language poetry derive from a wealth of different traditions.

Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publish Date: February 20, 2002
Pages: 442
Language: English

9780472067251

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I have and will continue to use An Exaltation of Forms in my course: Survey of Forms. It’s an undergraduate entry level poetry course designed to familarize creative writing majors with prosody and form. In the Spring of 2002 I supplemented the class texts with An Exaltation of Forms as soon as it was published. I plan to use the book in its entirety when I teach the course again in the spring of 2003. An Exaltation of Forms offers a much more inclusive survey of forms than other books. The book offers a range of poetic styles, philosophies and approaches– an abundance of models for students. For example, unlike the Wallace and Bishop textbooks, An Exaltation of Forms includes discussions of avant garde forms and even spoken word forms– two forms/genres often under-represented in creative writing courses.

Terrance Hayes

 

From The Publisher

The forms range from hendecasyllabics to prose poetry, haiku to procedural poetry, sonnets to blues, rap to fractal verse. The range of poets included is equally impressive–from Amiri Baraka to John Frederick Nims, from Maxine Kumin to Marilyn Hacker, from Agha Shahid Ali to Pat Mora, from W. D. Snodgrass to Charles Bernstein. Achieving this level of eclecticism is a remarkable feat, especially given the strong opinions held by members of the various camps (e.g., the New Formalists, LANGUAGE poets, feminist and multicultural poets) that exist within today’s poetry community. Poets who might never occupy the same room here occupy the same pages, perhaps for the first time. The net effect is a book that will surprise, inform, and delight a wide range of readers, whether as reference book, pleasure reading, or classroom text.

Excerpt

A passionate interest in poetics is the bridge that links poets together, and we are proud to have gathered in one volume such a great range of approaches to poetic form, whether form is defined in terms of rhythm, rhyme, repetition, numbering, lineation, spatial arrangement, or any other ordering principle.  The forms are as ancient as the litany and the ghazal, as contemporary as fractal verse and hip-hop, as Western as the sonnet and the rondeau, as Eastern as the haiku and pantoum. This book embodies the diversity of American poetry today, and the contributors are influenced by the most far-flung schools of contemporary poetics:  Language and avant-garde, free verse and mainstream, Formalist and traditional, Beat and performance. The reader will find more than technical wisdom here, although that abounds.  These essays also reflect the interweaving of form with imaginative vision, political identity, and world-view. . .

Reviews

 

I have and will continue to use An Exaltation of Forms in my course: Survey of Forms. It’s an undergraduate entry level poetry course designed to familarize creative writing majors with prosody and form. In the Spring of 2002 I supplemented the class texts with An Exaltation of Forms as soon as it was published. I plan to use the book in its entirety when I teach the course again in the spring of 2003. An Exaltation of Forms offers a much more inclusive survey of forms than other books. The book offers a range of poetic styles, philosophies and approaches– an abundance of models for students. For example, unlike the Wallace and Bishop textbooks, An Exaltation of Forms includes discussions of avant garde forms and even spoken word forms– two forms/genres often under-represented in creative writing courses.

Terrance Hayes

 

 

My new poetry group of six is using An Exaltation of Forms to try out new forms. We meet once a month and decide on a form to read about and experiment with for the next meeting. Everyone loves the book and says that it’s far better than other books about forms they’ve seen.

Judith Barrington

 

 

I am happily using An Exaltation of Forms in conjunction with Perrine’s Sound & Sense for a graduate course called Poetry for Poets which attempts to cover both the theory of poetry (elements etc) & some practice. Both texts work well, and quite well together. I haven’t assigned every chapter of An Exaltation of Forms by a long shot. But I think it is a very useful book and I would definitely use it again

Rachel Hadas

 

 

 

An Exaltation of Forms is an invigorating book. I read it, share it with friends, and recommend it to students.

Grace Schulman

 

 

 

An Exaltation of Forms is a revolutionary book.

Elizabeth Alexander

 

 

Finch and Varnes have compiled and edited a groundbreaking and important book on poetry and its forms. Most outstanding is how the book is true to its title; it IS an exaltation of forms. Eclipsing Lewis Turco’s The Book of Forms, this volume celebrates poetic expression in its polyvalent forms. The editors gathered short, pithy introductions to poetic forms (from dactyl metrics to the ghazal) used by practicing poets from the well-known (Billy Collins, Maxine Kumin) to the emerging (Vince Gotera, Tracie Morris). Accompanying the introductions are poetic examples of the forms. Most impressive is the range and eclecticism of topics: LANGUAGE poetry lies next to new formalist poetry lies next to slam poetry lies next to shaped poetry. In short, this book deftly and enthusiastically answers the question of where poetry stands at the beginning of the 21st century. Highest recommendation.

J. Brock, Choice