Quick, joyful, and playfully astringent, with surprising comparisons and examples, this collection takes an unconventional approach to the art of poetry. Instead of rules, theories, or recipes, Singing School emphasizes ways to learn from great work: studying magnificent, monumentally enduring poems and how they are made in terms borrowed from the singing school of William Butler Yeatss Sailing to Byzantium.

Robert Pinskys headnotes for each of the 80 poems and his brief introductions to each section take a writers view of specific works: William Carlos Williamss Fine Work with Pitch and Copper for intense verbal music; Emily Dickinsons Because I Could Not Stop for Death for wild imagination in matter-of-fact language; Robert Southwells The Burning Babe for surrealist aplomb; Wallace Stevenss The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm for subtlety in meter. Included are poems by Aphra Behn, Allen Ginsberg, George Herbert, John Keats, Mina Loy, Thomas Nashe, and many other master poets.

This anthology respects poetrys mysteries in two senses of the word: techniques of craft and strokes of the inexplicable.