Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms

"Readers will have the good fortune to experience poetry as art, game, joke, list, song, story, statement, question, memory. A primer like no other." -- School Library Journal (starred review)

In this splendid and playful volume -- second of a trilogy -- an acclaimed creative team presents examples of twenty-nine poetic forms, demonstrating not only the (sometimes bendable) rules of poetry, but also the spirit that brings these forms to life. Featuring poems from the likes of Eleanor Farjeon (aubade), X. J. Kennedy (elegy), Ogden Nash (couplet), Liz Rosenberg (pantoum), and William Shakespeare, the sonnet king himself, A Kick in the Head perfectly illustrates Robert Frost's maxim that poetry without rules is like a tennis match without a net.
Back matter includes notes on poetic forms.