All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification

25th Annniversary Edition, with a new preface by the author Perfect for the general reader of poetry, students and teachers of literature, and aspiring poets, All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing is a lively and comprehensive study of versification by one of our best contemporary practitioners of traditional poetic forms. Emphasizing both the coherence and the diversity of English metrical practice from Chaucer’s time to ours, Timothy Steele explains how poets harmonize the fixed units of meter with the variable flow of idiomatic speech, and examines the ways in which poets have used meter, rhyme, and stanza to communicate and enhance meaning. Steele illuminates as well many practical, theoretical, and historical issues in English prosody, without ever losing sight of the fundamental pleasures, beauties, and insights that fine poems offer us. Written lucidly, with a generous selection of helpful scansions and explanations of the metrical effects of the great poets of the English language, All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing is not only a valuable handbook on technique; it is also a wide-ranging study of English verse and a mine of entertaining information for anyone wishing more fully to write, enjoy, understand, or teach poetry.

Timothy Steele’s books include Toward the Winter Solstice, a collection of poems published by Ohio University Press. Among Steele’s honors are a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing from Stanford University; a Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a professor emeritus of California State University, Los Angeles, where he taught literature and writing for twenty-five years.