Though they appear diverse, Homer's Odyssey and slam poetry from contemporary urban America draw from the well of oral tradition. This unique, practical, and user-friendly guide explores the cultural contexts of verbal art to provide more-than-textual methods for understanding the structure, principles, and social applications of oral poetry.

　　Drawing on dozens of examples, including a North American slam poet, a Tibetan paper-singer, a South African praise-poet, and an ancient Greek bard, John Miles Foley shows that although oral poetry long predates the invention of writing, it continues to be a vital culture-making and communications tool in societies all over the world. Based on fieldwork and archival research on epics, folktales, lyrics, laments, charms, and other oral traditions, How to Read an Oral Poem answers the questions, What is oral poetry? How does it work? What is reading, literally and figuratively?

　　This accessible and engaging work is enhanced by audio and video examples of oral poetry, which are available at http://www.oraltradition.org. The book can also be used as companion volume to Foley's Teaching Oral Traditions.

　　John Miles Foley is Curators' and Byler Professor of Classical Studies and English at the University of Missouri and director of its Center for Studies in Oral Tradition. He is the author of Homer's Traditional Art, The Singer of Tales in Performance, Immanent Art, Teaching Oral Traditions, and numerous scholarly articles.

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　　Welcome to the e-companion to How to Read an Oral Poem by John Miles Foley (http://www.press.uillinois.edu/f02/foley.html). This resource provides photo, audio, video, and bibliographic support for the various chapters or "words" in that book. The site has been designed to offer examples and additional information that are best presented via the web, the kinds of materials that don't fit comfortably between the covers of a conventional book. In this sense we're trying to take advantage of both media -- book and web -- and to underline the kinship between oral poetry and the Internet (a subject discussed in HROP).

　　A few tips on how to use what you'll find here. To start, you can navigate most successfully with the book in one hand and your mouse in the other. The various materials can be located by clicking first on Table of Contents and then following the links. The individual items available include: a complete table of contents, photographs to illustrate the Four Scenarios, an audio clip of lines from Beowulf in the original Old English (to accompany the First Word), a video of Lynne Procope performing her slam poem, "elemental woman" (to accompany the Fourth Word), photos of slam poets performing at the Nuyorican (to accompany the Seventh Word), an audio recording of a healing charm from the Former Yugoslavia (with text and English translation, to accompany the Eighth Word), an original-language text and English translation of a healing charm (to accompany the Eighth Word), and an audio recording of The Widow Jana, an epic from the Former Yugoslavia (also with text and English translation, to accompany the Eighth Word). In addition, clicking on Annotated Bibliography will bring you a version of HROP's bibliography with each book and article summarized in a few sentences.