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Sound and Form in Modern Poetry: A Study of Prosody from Thomas Hardy to Robert Lowell by Harvey Gross offers a comprehensive and nuanced exploration of poetic form and prosody in twentieth-century poetry. Delving deeply into the rhythmic and sonic dimensions that shape modern English verse, Gross guides readers through both traditional metrical conventions and the innovative departures of modern poets.Navigating the “dark wood” of conflicting theories and approaches to poetic rhythm, Gross traces the evolution of English-language prosody from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. The book provides detailed analyses of the techniques and stylistic achievements of poets such as Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane, W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Lowell. Gross doesn't just analyze meter—he considers a broader concept of rhythmic structure, one that encompasses visual, syntactic, and auditory patterns and recognizes prosody as a vital means by which poetry communicates feeling, expectation, and psychological process.Blending close readings, literary criticism, and insights from linguistics and aesthetics, Sound and Form in Modern Poetry challenges simplistic accounts of meter and embraces the complexity of both metrical and nonmetrical verse. Generously referencing both classical and contemporary critics, the book supplies readers with a clear framework for understanding the convergences and tensions between tradition and innovation in modern poetry. Essential for students, scholars, and poetry lovers alike, Gross’s study reveals how the nuances of sound and rhythm are central to a poem’s expressive power.

The Ghost of Meter: Culture and Prosody in American Free Verse provides a new strategy for interpreting the ways in which metrical patterns contribute to the meaning of poems. Annie Finch puts forth the theory of "the metrical code," a way of tracing the changing cultural connotations of metered verse, especially iambic pentameter. By applying the code to specific poems, the author is able to analyze a writer's relation to literary history and to trace the evolution of modern and contemporary poetries from the forms that precede them.Poet, translator, and critic Annie Finch is director of the Stonecoast low-residency MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. She is co-editor, with Kathrine Varnes, of An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, and author of Calendars. She is the winner of the eleventh annual Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award for scholars who have made a lasting contribution to the art and science of versification. Author bio:Annie Finch, poet, editor, and critic, has published twenty books of poetry and poetics including Spells: New and Selected Poems, The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self,  An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, A Poet's Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry, and The Ghost of Meter: Culture and Prosody in American Free Verse.  Based in New York, Dr. Finch travels widely to teach and perform her poetry and is the founder of PoetryWitchCommunity.org, where she teaches poetry, meter, and more. She is the winner of the eleventh annual Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award for scholars who have made a lasting contribution to the art and science of versification.