By John Drury
Writer's Digest Books, an Imprint of F+W Publications
Paperback

From Abecedarium (a poem arranged according to the alphabet) to Word (the basic unit of the sentence) The Poetry Dictionary takes us on a journey of discovery.

Along the way we encounter such familiar terms as Poem, Carol and Muse and unfamiliar terms like Drottkvaett (an Old Norse stanzaic form) and Synecdoche (a figure of speech in which a part of something indicates the whole). We find old standards penned by the likes of William Shakespeare and Robert Browning but also see lesser-known verse by Woodrow Wilson and Agha Shahid Ali.

The Poetry Dictionary Excerpt Free verse is as old as the Bible, whose long verses are not metrical, although they are structured according to repetition and variation of words and phrases. Despite the use of occasional free verse by otherwise metrical poets like the eighteenth century’s Christopher Smart (“For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry” from Jubilate Agno) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (“Prometheus”), modern free verse begins in English with Walt Whitman (who modeled his long lines on the Bible and grand opera) and in French with Arthur Rimbaud (who did not). © John Drury Published with permission from Writer's Digest Books

Such a book cannot, however, be created by a single man. The acknowledgments make it clear that many individuals contribute to the dictionary. Even Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Lord Byron pitch in, providing translations for Francois Villon’s “The Ballad of Dead Ladies” and Dante Alighieri’s “Francesca of Rimini” respectively.

Throughout the dictionary, related terms are grouped into major entries and subordinate terms are placed within larger entries. Terms that appear elsewhere as individual entries are proceeded by asterisks, creating a web of connections that shows how the elements of poetry are intertwined.

Each entry provides a pronunciation guide and a definition in the first paragraph. Additional paragraphs give more information.

Many entries contain one or more model poems that illustrate poetic forms or devices. Most of the examples are whole poems, but some are excerpts from longer works.

Bookworm's Briefing
The Poetry Dictionary may be read as a guide to the practice and history of verse or as an annotated anthology of model poems. Either way, it not only makes for interesting reading, but encourages writers to venture forth into the joys of poetry.

The author, John Drury, is himself a poet. He has been published in The American Poetry Review, The New Republic and The Paris Review, among others, and authored Creating Poetry, published by Writers Digest Books. He teaches poetry at the University of Cincinnati.