Poetry: An Introduction is an accessible and clearly written introduction to the structural and methodological principles underpinning poetry and its study. It aims to equip the student, researcher, and general reader with a body of technical information that will sharpen and deepen their engagement with individual poems.

Strachan and Terry provide a lively map through what might on first experience seem the most daunting aspects of poetry: poetic sound effects, rhythm and meter, the typographic display of poems on the page, the language of poetry, and the use made by poets of techniques of comparison and association. The book's discussion of poetic terminology is allied throughout to illustrative readings that show the usefulness of the terminology in approaching particular poems: its emphasis is always a practical one, demonstrating how poems actually work.

Beginning with an historical overview of the development of English poetry from its earliest origins and finishing with an authoritative dictionary of poetical terms, Poetry: An Introduction is an indispensable guide to the understanding of poetry.