Introduction, Schemes and Verse Systems Summary and Analysis

Hollander introduces the book as a "guide to verse," meaning the formal structure of poetry. This structure is required of poetry, he explains, but by itself the structures do not make a poem a poem. The structures are like forms that can be built into many different shapes, but not all of these shapes will constitute poetry. A shopping list, for example, might conform to the structure of a poem but not be poetry.

Unfortunately, Hollander writes, modern students are not as familiar with poetry as they once were required to be, and most people regard any formal structure of text to be poetry, particularly if it rhymes. He likens the world of poetry to a large and beautiful park that people one strolled through but in modern times which has been ignored...