Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Form

Strong Measures is still by far the best anthology of forms, far surpassing Strand and Boland's (which actually claims blank verse is seldom used in the 20th century) and Finch's (too few examples, too much blather). I'd love to see a new edition. I wish Longman would put a reasonable price tag on this book, as most students will never be able to afford the whopping $100.20 now being charged for it.

I am a student of poetry currently in a workshop on forms and this book is amazing. Not only does it have excellent poems in forms from a wide range of serious writers, but in the index it has a list of forms featured in the book, what exactly makes up the form, and refers you to examples of each in the book. I'm sure I will use it years after this one.

Being aware of the craft of writing heightens the appreciation of it. Poetry is a powerful, condensed form of writing, and traditional forms of poetry create a framework that this power presses against. Strong Measures is a fine anthology of modern American poets who work within these forms. Beginning with an accessable introduction to the history of poetic form, followed by examples by over 150 contemporary poets, and ending with an appendix explaining meter, scansion, form definition, and a classification of the poems by form, this is a wonderful reference book for anyone who wants to know where that resonance in what they just read came from.