Book details

The Secret Life of Poems is a primer which offers a poem - or on occasion an excerpt - succeeding with commentary in which rhythm, form, metre and sources are the order of the day, not ethical commentary or descriptive paraphrase. This brief engagement with forty-seven poems is intended for students and readers of poetry, and seeks to explain how poetry works by bringing into view the hidden order of specific poems.

Tom Paulin was born in Leeds in 1949 but grew up in Belfast, and was educated at the universities of Hull and Oxford. He has published seven collections of poetry as well as a Selected Poems 1972-1990, two major anthologies, two versions of Greek drama and several critical works, including The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style. Well-known for his appearances on the BBC's Late Review, he is also the G. M. Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.