Literary Nonfiction. Poetry History & Criticism. Hearing and speaking are essential to making poems live. Poems are a physical experience. This book explains how to find your way to the heart of a poem by taking it off the page. The authors have taught poetry successfully with this method for many years and now they share it beyond their own classroom.

"Poetry weds the body to the soul, and SOUND IDEAS is a superb introduction to the manifold ways in which poets touch us to the core of our being.... This should be required reading for anyone interested in poetry, particularly for those who hope to make poems themselves. A brilliant book."—Christopher Merrill, Poet, director of the International Writing Program, University of Iowa

"The unique appeal of this book is its emphasis on how to speak and hear the poem. In the end, speaking and learning how to 'hear' the poem brings the reader closer and closer to the poem's 'sound ideas,' that mysterious and startling moment when tongue, ear, and brain are all sounding together."—Robert Cording, Poet, Barrett Chair of Creative Writing at the College of the Holy Cross