Brush Up Your Poetry

Does classic verse "knit your brow" or "whet your whistle"? Either way, you're quoting a great 14th century poet Chaucer, who also coined the phrases "patience is a virtue" and "in one ear and out the other." Brush Up Your Poetry! traces hundreds of similar sayings, mottoes and maxims to their often surprising roots in some of our greatest poetry. You will find the classically poetic, such as Browning's "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways", as well as myriad well-known phrases that may surprise you, such as Pope's "a little learning is a dangerous thing," and Longfellow's "into each life some rain must fall." All the memorable lines are placed in context, enabling you to enjoy the poetry, and all the poets are described in concise sketches showing their hearts, minds, and meaning. Spanning Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Whitman, Yeats, Eliot, and Frost, this volume reminds us that poetry is not only alive and well, but also a language we actually speak every day