09-20-2011, 05:17 AM
You'd really have to pick up a book to find out 
Most of the ones we've mentioned are more in the nature of poetry encyclopaedias -- they help to explain the nuts and bolts of poetry and hopefully iron out the most common beginner flaws. There are some excellent essays around by various writers on the nature of poetry also, but the ones I call "excellent" aren't banging on about their own personal style, they're generally talking about ways to understand poetry and poets (and the many ways they're misunderstood, which seems to have been a problem for centuries even though we're all convinced it's something unique to our own generation!)
My personal favourites are Boccaccio's Genealogy of the Gentile Gods, Ch. 7: The Definition of Poetry, Its Origin and Function (you can download the document from www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/genealogygentilegods.doc) -- written in 1360 and still every bit as valid today; A Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley (http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html) written in 1821; and The Sacred Wood, 1921 by T S Eliot (who I generally despise as a poet, but agree with in many other areas -- not all, I hasten to add!)
Most of the ones we've mentioned are more in the nature of poetry encyclopaedias -- they help to explain the nuts and bolts of poetry and hopefully iron out the most common beginner flaws. There are some excellent essays around by various writers on the nature of poetry also, but the ones I call "excellent" aren't banging on about their own personal style, they're generally talking about ways to understand poetry and poets (and the many ways they're misunderstood, which seems to have been a problem for centuries even though we're all convinced it's something unique to our own generation!)
My personal favourites are Boccaccio's Genealogy of the Gentile Gods, Ch. 7: The Definition of Poetry, Its Origin and Function (you can download the document from www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/genealogygentilegods.doc) -- written in 1360 and still every bit as valid today; A Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley (http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html) written in 1821; and The Sacred Wood, 1921 by T S Eliot (who I generally despise as a poet, but agree with in many other areas -- not all, I hasten to add!)
It could be worse