I will readily admit that it took me a long time to fall in love with the written art. By written arts, I mean the literary masterpieces that my English Professors raved about. It wasn’t until I became invested in poetry that my love affair with writing began. Though, I will admit to my lack of knowledge on the finer points of poetry. So in a mission to improve my writing, I decided to invest in my education on the subject of poetry.

I picked up the book, Poetry 101 by Susan Dalzell as the first step in this improvement. The book covers the wide range of poetry movements from sonnets to contemporary poetry. The movements reviewed are from all over the world and not solely focused on one region. The book covers the signature style of each period while introducing key figures from that period. It opened my eyes to authors that I was not aware of such as John Keats and May Swenson. It also gave a description of the life of some favorite poets as well such as Robert Frost.

This book is not a preview of famous work as it only covers the history and life story of the poets. So, don’t expect actually poetry within the pages instead of stories and recommendations. Upon the completion of the history of poetry, the book closes with a series of tips for those wanting to try their own hand of poetry. If the history of poetry has taught us anything is that the next great movement in literary work can come from anywhere even you.