文学教学中，诗歌最难。《美国诗歌欣赏教程》的编写初衷便是帮助学生理解诗歌，喜欢诗歌，创作诗歌。全书分为英语诗歌入门和美国诗歌两部分。英语诗歌入门包含诗歌定义、诗歌功用、诗歌类型和诗歌要素等内容；美国诗歌版块则基本按照历史发展的脉络，注重代表性和艺术性，精选美国文学史上不同时期的代表性诗人及其代表作，通过赏析和品鉴作品，提高学生的理论素养和鉴赏能力。

李正栓，文学博士，英国斯特灵大学荣誉博士，河北师范大学教授，博士生导师，河北省中青年社科专家五十人工程成员、省有突出贡献的中青年专家；担任教育部外国语言文学类教学指导委员会英语分委员会委员、中国英汉语比较研究会典籍英译委员会会长、全国英国文学研究会常务理事、河北省翻译学会会长等多项社会职务；曾多次获河北省优秀科研成果奖、河北省优秀教学成果奖；主持国家课题1项、教育部课题1项、省部级课题若干项、厅级课题若干项，参与国家社科基金课题两项；出版《邓恩诗歌研究》《邓恩诗歌思想与艺术研究》《美国诗歌研究》等专著5部、英美文学教材10部，发表论文多篇。近年出版多部译著，主要包括《毛泽东诗词英译》《乐府诗英译》《藏族格言诗英译》《萨迦格言》《格丹格言》《水树格言》《仓央嘉措抒情诗选》等。

Part One Entree to English Poetry
I.What Is Poetry?
II.The Function of Poetry
III.Major Types of Poetry
1.Narrative Poetry
2.Lyric Poetry
3.Dramatic Poetry
IV.Elements of Poetry
1.Rhyme
2.Metre
3.Foot
4.Metrical Pattern
5.Stanza
6.Image
7.Symbol
8.Figures of Speech
9.Speaker and Tone
10.Diction
11.Subject Matter and Theme
V.How to Read a Poem?
1.Read a Poem More Than Once
2.Keep a Dictionary Nearby and Use It
3.Read So As to Hear the Sounds of the Words in Your Mind
4.Pay Full Attention to What the Poem Is Saying
5.Practice Reading Poems Aloud
Part Two American Poetry
1.Anne Dudley Bradstreet
To My Dear and Loving Husband
2.William Cullen Bryant
To a Waterfowl
Thanatopsis
3.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm of Life
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
Daybreak
4.Edgar Allan Poe
To Helen
Annabel Lee
The Raven
To My Mother
5.Wait Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
I Hear America Singing
Youth, Day, Old Age and Night
There Was a Child Went Forth
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
An Excerpt from Song of Myself
6.Emily Dickinson
479 Because I Couldn't Stop for Death
112 Success Is Counted Sweetest
260 l'm Nobody! Who Are You?
269 Wild Nights-- Wild Nights!
448 I Died for Beauty--But Was Scarce
591 I Heard a Fly Buzz--When I Died
254 "Hope" Is a Thing with Feathers
1263 Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant
1176 We Never Know How High
7.Edwin Arlington Robinson
Richard Cory
Miniver Cheevy
8.Stephen Crane
Black Riders Came from the Sea
A Man Said to the Universe
9.Robert Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Mending Wall
The Road Not Taken
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Fire and Ice
10.Carl Sandburg
Chicago
The Harbor
11.Wallace Stevens
Anecdote of the Jar
12.William Carlos Williams
The Red Wheelbarrow
13.Ezra Pound
In a Station of the Metro
A Pact
14.Hilda Doolittle
Oread
Helen
Never More Will the Wind
15.T.S.Eliot
Preludes
16.e.e.Cummings
l(a)
in Just
17.Hart Crane
An Excerpt from The Bridge
18.Langston Hughes
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Dreams
Warning
19.Elizabeth Bishop
The Fish
20.Randall Jarrell
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
21.Robert Lowell
Skunk Hour
22.John Ashbery
Some Trees
23.Anne Sexton
The Truth the Dead Know
24.Sylvia Plath
Daddy
Mirror
25.David Lehman
When a Woman Loves a Man
Bibliography