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How to Read Poetry Like a Professor
Title: How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse Author: Thomas C. Foster Published: New York: Harper Perennial, 2018 I recently read his book How to Read Novels Like a Professor, so this is my next Foster installment. I was not disappointed. He continues to educate in a light-hearted manner. Poetry is just a little different as in many can read a novel and for the most part jump right in with one go and get the gist of it. But poetry is a different animal. Personally, I love poetry. Foster explores the definition of poetry, how it “uses language to take us to a place beyond language… and reading poetry requires more than just your brain.”[1] Now this doesnt really give us a definition of poetry, but it gives you the idea that were dealing with a different type of animal. Poetry is almost a different language, or it can appear that way. I like to see it going beyond language. I do agree with Foster that it is best to read poetry out loud. Especially when first starting out with a new poem. Also, a good piece of advice he gives is…
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How to Read Novels Like a Professor: Book Review
Title: How to Read Novels Like a Professor Author: Thomas C. Foster Published: New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008 About the Author[1] Thomas C. Foster grew up in rural Ohio. His early inspirations to literary works came from Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain. He taught literature from 1975 until his retirement in 2014 with his last 27 years at the University of Michigan-Flint. He has written the following books published under HarperCollins: How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003, revised 2014), How to Read Novels Like a Professor (2008), Twenty-five Books that Shaped America (2011), How to Read Literature Like a Professor—for Kids (2012), Reading the Silver Screen (2016), and How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse (2018). Less well-known works include Form and Society in Modern Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), Seamus Heaney (Twayne, 1989), and Understanding John Fowles (University of South Carolina Press, 1994). He is still active writing books and you can find his blog site at thomascfoster.com. My Perspective This book was an accidental find. Meaning I was not looking for it and it was not recommended by anybody I knew. As far as I was concerned…
