How long does it take to read The Making of a Poem?
Mark Strand, Eavan Boland
The Making of a Poem by Mark Strand, Eavan Boland takes about 6 hours 43 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 6 hours 43 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2000. 366 pages, about 100,650 words.
14 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 11 hours 11 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 43 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 12 minutes |
The page count is the median across 3 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
In the words of its editors, Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, The Making of a Poem "looks squarely at some of the headaches and mysteries of poetic form." Here, two of our foremost poets provide a lucid, straightforward anthology for those who have always felt that an understanding of form -- sonnet, ballad, villanelle, sestina, etc. -- would enhance their appreciation of poetry. By example and explanation, the anthology traces "the exuberant history of forms," a history that unites poets as manifold as John Keats and Joy Harjo (the Ode) or Geoffrey Chaucer and Jean Toomer (the Stanza). Each chapter is devoted to one form, offering explanation, close reading, and a rich selection of exemplars that amply demonstrate the power and possibility of the form. In the end, Strand and Boland write, "we hope that the reader will agree that these forms are -- as we believe -- not locks, but keys." In linking the expressive potential of a poem to its architecture of syllable and rhyme, this collection is as instructive for the novice as it is inspiring for the practiced poet. - Jacket flap.
Subjects: English poetry, American poetry, Literary form
