This introduction to prosody--the art and science of metrical composition in poetry--teaches the reader how good poems work. The guide discusses the basic building blocks of poetry, such as rhyme, rhythm, meter, and form. Each of the 10 chapters is a progressive, step-by-step presentation with illustrative examples. The guide does not deal with verseforms exhaustively, but it does introduce the concept and discuss verseforms that poets writing in English have most often used. The goal of the guide is to introduce traditional English-language prosodic practice and then to progress to fairly advanced levels of competence in it. The selected bibliography which concludes the guide offers readers/students a chance to carry their investigation of the subject farther. (NKA)