Veronica Forrest-Thomson - Poetic Artifice - A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry

Edited & introduced by Gareth Farmer.
Published March 2016. Paperback, 238pp, 9 x 6ins. £16.95.
ISBN 9781848614451 [Download a sample PDF from this book here.] Not for sale outside the UK and Ireland.

First published posthumously in 1978 by Manchester University Press, this volume turned sharply against critics of the previous generation, notably William Empson, and against emergent strains of historicism. The book is an exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) defence of “all the rhythmic, phonetic, verbal, and logical devices which make poetry different from prose.” According to the author, such devices are responsible for poetry’s most significant effect—not pleasure or ornament or some kind of special expressivity, but the production of “alternative imaginary orders.”

See a review in The Guardian here.

Keston Sutherland's Kenyon Review essay here.

See special feature in Jacket magazine here.

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