Lewis Turco

Buried in Emily Dickinson's letters are many lines that are stunningly beautiful, as beautiful as any to be found in her poems. Lewis Turco has taken some of these lines and written poems from them, on them, and around them. This volume, then, is a collaboration between two writers, one a 19th-century woman whose work became known to most readers only in the 20th century, and the other a post-modernist man of letters—an award-winning poet, critic, and scholar.

In addition to the poems collected here, Turco has written an informative introduction and included several essays by feminist critics and other scholars who discuss various aspects of Emily Dickinson's letters.

Emily Dickinson, Woman of Letters is therefore at once an addition to the Dickinson canon, a distinguished collection of contemporary poems, an important volume of critical scholarship in American literature, and a fascinating reading experience that will appeal to a wide audience of professionals and non-professionals alike. - from the publisher… (mer)

I found this to be a very useful handbook when I was seriously trying to write formed verse when I was young. It gives clear explanations of the patterns of a wide variety of verse forms; most are late medieval to modern European,but a few are from other cultures. here is also a very helpful bibliography of modern (as of 1968) examples of poets working in these forms, which not only encourage reading some poems which are delightful in themselves, but also makes very clear that these verse forms are by no means "dead" i recent times, just because of the fad for unformed verse in the twentieth century. The book is also a very small hand [pocket size, eay to carry around and consult as needed.… (mer)