This comprehensive guide demystifies the world of poetry, exploring poetic forms and traditions which can at first seem bewildering. Showing how any reader can gain more pleasure from poetry, it looks at the ways in which poetry interacts with the language used in everyday lives and explores how poems use language and form to create meaning. Drawing on examples ranging from Chaucer to children's rhymes, Cole Porter to Carol Ann Duffy, and from around the English-speaking world, it looks at aspects including: how technical aspects such as rhythm and measures work; how different tones of voice affect a poem; how poetic language relates to everyday language; how different types of poetry work, from sonnets to free verse; and how the form and "space" of a poem contributes to its meaning. This book is an invaluable and easy to read guide for anyone wanting to get to grips with reading and writing poetry. After the Acknowledgments and Preface, this book is organized into the following chapters: (1) Because there is language there is poetry; (2) Deliberate Space; (3) Tones of Voice; (4) Measures; (5) 'Free Verse'; (6) Rhyme; (7) Stanza; and (8) Image - Imagination - Inspiration. A Conclusion and Glossary are also included.