Joanna Gavins presents some of the newest and most influential ideas in cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics through clearly explained, practical analyses of the work of some of the most popular and celebrated poets currently writing in the British Isles. Through analysis of works by Jo Bell, Simon Armitage, Sinead Morrissey, John Burnside, Alice Oswald and Kate Tempest she demonstrates the practical use of cognitive frameworks as a means of understanding poetry and its effects. Gavins examines cutting edge concepts in cognition including world-building, conceptual integration, embodiment, and distributed cognition and develops our understanding of key notions in poetics such as poetic metre, performance, metaphor and intertextuality.

Each chapter of the book addresses a central poetic notion or feature of poetic style from an innovative cognitive perspective, shedding new light on established ideas about poetic creativity and language.