[Mike Todd]

I'm interested in learning close reading. I've started Richards' Principles of Literary Criticism and I've got his Practical Criticism and A. F. Scott's Close Reading waiting in the wings. I just finished Burton Raffel's How To Read A Poem and found it very helpful.

Are you aware of any other good pixel or paper-based resources?

[Clive Watkins]

Some books I have enjoyed, whose authors engage in the kind of close reading I like to encounter…

Winifred Nowottny, The Language Poets Use, University of London, 1962

Marie Borroff, Language and the Poet: Verbal Artistry in Frost, Stevens, and Moore, University of Chicago, 1979

Mark Ford, A Driftwood Altar: Essays and Reviews, The Waywiser Press, London, 2005.

Then there is Empson – and of course Cleanth Brooks (The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry, 1942).

Have fun!

Clive Watkins

[Maryann Corbett]

Understanding Poetry, by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. It's still in print after all these years, which is quite a testimonial.

[Jill Domschot]

I would like to be able to do close readings and to see all those little things that others see. I think it would help me with my own poetry. On the other hand, what I enjoy most in poetry is the magic and mystery. I don't want to destroy that. In some ways, I suppose, close readings enhance the mystery because poetry is slippery. I don't mean as in slippery eels or fishes, of course. Jill

[Mary Meriam]

Mike, I've published three close readings:

Groping in the Dark

Cheers

Ars Longa

[Mike Todd]

Clive, Maryann—

Thanks for your recommendations. Fortunately for my wallet, I already own most of the books mentioned. I suppose I ought to get off my proverbial and start reading. Understanding Poetry looks like a good place to begin; it seems geared toward teaching rather than simply demonstrating. (Not that I think you can't learn from a good demonstration.)

Jill—

Here is an excerpt from Burton Raffel's book—the beginning of a close reading of Robert Frost's The Pasture:

"This is a lovely poem; it plainly means something, and it is plainly both earnest and emotional about whatever that something is. But since the poem is neither completely literal nor completely nonliteral, its meaning is inseparable both from what is literally conveyed and from what is nonliterally conveyed. Its meaning is an interwoven composite of both the literal and the nonliteral components of the poem. It works subtly but not mysteriously; untangling what the poet has so delicately put together is neither injurious to nor a betrayal of the poem."

And from Frost himself (quoting from memory):

"I never want to be too thorough with anything as delicate as a poem. Don't press it. Let it do it to you."

Like a lot of other activities, close reading can be a life-affirming pursuit, as long as you know where to draw the line.

Mary—

I enjoyed your readings. You know your stuff. Where did you learn to close read? Has it all been simply a matter of practice, practice, practice? Or have you had some help from books?

[Tim Murphy]

Mike, does one become a close reader by being a close writer, or is it the reverse? It seems to me that you are both.

[Mike Todd]

Tim—

I'm neither, but I do put on a good show.

[Tim Love]

It depends what you mean by "close reading" but at least with Ruth Padel's "52 Ways of Looking at a Poem" or "The Poem and the Journey" you get an anthology of modern poetry as a by-product. If you want a sample, look at http://www.ruthpadel.com/pages/reading_poem.htm
especially the discussion of "Machines"

[Mary Meriam]

Thanks, Mike. No, I didn't learn it from books or practice a lot. These are the first close reads I ever wrote. Not sure how I did it - just plunged in. I do know that critting here has helped focus my readings, because giving a crit, you stick your neck out.