From Booklist
When poets write books about how to read poetry, they are drawing on personal reading experiences so profound they inspired them to write as well as read poems. These writers also have a vested interest in the subject: they want, no, need people to read poetry. Kohl, on the other hand, addresses the art of reading poetry strictly from a reader's point of view. A renowned educator and prolific author, Kohl brings all his enthusiasm for learning and teaching to his welcoming primer on the pleasures of contemporary poetry. His intention is to help his readers give themselves over to poetry, to let poems speak to them directly. Kohl plunges right in, presenting poems by his personal favorites and muses, including Denise Levertov, William Carlos Williams, Jane Hirshfield, Joy Harjo, Rita Dove, Victor Hernandez Cruz, and Mark Doty. Assuring his readers that "there is no single and unambiguous reading of a poem," Kohl offers illuminating close readings linked to easily assimilated discussions of line breaks, rhythm and melody, images, and voice.
Donna Seaman
Newsday
"
A Grain of Poetry demonstrates brilliantly that it doesn't always take a poet to teach poetry. Kohl writes in a direct style . . . [and] has an unusual, and affecting, way of stepping around a poem to look at it from every angle. . . . He also has a remarkable field of vision."