For those of us interested in analyzing the underlying craft of a piece, who get excited about discovering the way a particular feeling is conveyed or moment of emotion expressed and exalted, this book is our speed. Hirsch gives generously throughout, providing little background summaries of each poet and then moving into the main preoccupation of the book: to identify where the greatest feeling of heartbreak exists and, more importantly, how.

An example of his style, here Hirsch discusses "The Owl" by Edward Thomas:

"...What the inn cannot keep out is 'An owl's cry,' which completes the stanza and the first half of this sixteen-line poem. Thomas decided to rhyme the second and fourth lines of each stanza (abcb), as in many ballads, and here he gets special effect from pairing the words "I" and "cry." It is this cry that unsettles the speaker."