All poetry students have been taught how meter, through the pacing of accented syllables and syllabic count, can control the rhythm and music of a poem. But Ellen Bryant Voigt, in her compact yet insightful book The Art of Syntax, shows us how the structure of the sentence can be used to pace the music of the words and the thought, much in the same way of musical phrasing, with which she draws an elegant analogy.

Perhaps, it’s easy to overlook the work that syntax is doing when verse offers us the traditional structure of, say, a sonnet. But when line lengths vary widely, Voigt tells us, “pattern must derive from syntax.” Throughout the book, Voigt gives several example poems, showing us how in each one, syntax is in a careful balance with stanza line and meter, in a musical dance that reveals pattern, crafts dramatic action and tension, and develops and discovers ideas.

It’s a beautiful book worth the read by anyone interested in deepening the texture in their poems.