4. Resources for Present and Future Study

Young,  Sue,  The New Comprehensive American Rhyming Dictionary, Avon Books, NY, NY, 1991.  (You’ll find this a tremendously handy paperback volume containing over 65,000 entries of contemporary American English — including some clichéd and slang expressions best used only in humorous verse.  It utilizes a key to spoken sounds that becomes increasingly familiar and easy to use for the serious poet-to-be who wants true ear-rhymes.)

Gwynn, R.S. (Editor), New Expansive Poetry, Story Line Press, Ashland, OR, 1999.  (An interesting group of broadly-ranging essays regarding the contemporary scene in formal poetry.)

Kinzie, Mary, A Poet’s Guide to Poetry, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1999.  (A comprehensive handbook of examples, principles, exercises, and terminology that will take you deep into the heart of formal poetry in all its variety of expression.)

Steele, Timothy, All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification, Ohio University Press, Athens, OH, 1999.  (He’s right.  When you finish this volume, you will probably agree, as I certainly do, that’s where all the fun is — as Robert Frost promised.)

Steele, Timothy, Measures: Modern Poetry and the Revolt Against Meter, University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville & London, 1990.  (This is a closely studied, detailed history of metrical poetry’s uses and abuses leading up to and including the revolt against it represented by William Carlos Williams and so many others.)

On a limited budget?  Buy Young’s Rhyming Dictionary now.  Borrow from your library, or by Inter-Library Loan, Steele’s All the Fun... and Kinzie’s A Poet’s Guide..., in that order.  Work with each until you are satisfied it is worth it to you personally to buy them.  They will lead you to other resources.