Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud [Hardcover]

This lively, abundant book is distinguished by its focus on hearing poetry read aloud. Robert Pinsky, beloved for his ability to bring poetry to life as spoken language, has collected poems that sound marvelous in a readers actual or imagined voice. Pinsky has organized the book into sections with brief introductions that emphasize the attentive, intuitive, and reflective process of listening to poetry. This structure provides an implicit, generous definition-by-example of poetry itself: beginning with Short Lines, Frequent Rhymes and Long Lines and proceeding through fundamental themes such as Love Poems, Odes, Complaints, and Celebrations, and Jokes, Ripostes, Parodies, and Insults.A vibrant anthology and accompanying CD that revive a great American tradition: the joy of reciting poetry aloud.