Flexible enough for any poetry course, this text is designed to make your students lifelong lovers of poetry. It combines classic poetry with today’s hippest verse, mixing in lots of contemporary life, humor, and universal themes. In-depth chapters on authors such as Emily Dickinson and Billy Collins reveal the real-life contexts in which poets create. There is also plenty of support for students — with thorough chapters on the poetic elements, six sensible chapters on critical reading and writing, and many helpful sample close readings, writing assignments, and student papers.
About the Author, Michael Meyer
Michael Meyer has taught writing and literature courses for more than thirty years—since 1981 at the University of Connecticut and before that at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the College of William and Mary. In addition to being an experienced teacher, Meyer is a highly regarded literary scholar. His scholarly articles have appeared in distinguished journals such as American Literature, Studies in the American Renaissance, and Virginia Quarterly Review. An internationally recognized authority on Henry David Thoreau, Meyer is a former president of the Thoreau Society and coauthor (with Walter Harding) of The New Thoreau Handbook, a standard reference source. The American Studies Association awarded his first book, Several More Lives to Live: Thoreau’s Political Reputation in America, the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize. . He is also the editor of Frederick Douglass: The Narrative and Selected Writings. He has lectured on a variety of American literary topics from Cambridge University to Peking University. His books for Bedford/St. Martin's include The Bedford Introduction to Literature; The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature; Literature to Go; Poetry: An Introduction; and Thinking and Writing about Literature.
