In Rap, As In Most Popular Lyrics,

When We Study Shakespeare On The Page, For Academic Purposes, We May Require All Kinds Of Help. Generally, We Read Him In Modern Spelling And With Modern Punctuation, And With Notes. But Any Poetry That Is Performed - From Song Lyric To Tragic Speech - Must Make Its Point, As It Were, Without Reference Back.

When Mr Ackroyd Says That In The 18th Century, Stranglers Bit Off The Noses Of Their Victims, I Feel That He Probably Knows What He Is Talking About. I Just Wish He Hadn't Told Me.

Some Of My Educated Filipino Friends Were Aspiring Poets, But Their Aspirations Were All In The Direction Of The United States. They Had No Desire To Learn From The Bardic Tradition That Continued In The Barrios. Their Ideal Would Have Been To Write Something That Would Get Them To Iowa, Where They Would Study Creative Writing.

Free Verse Seemed Democratic Because It Offered Freedom Of Access To Writers. And Those Who Disdained Free Verse Would Always Be Open To Accusations Of Elitism, Mandarinism. Open Form Was Like Common Ground On Which All Might Graze Their Cattle - It Was Not To Be Closed In By Usurping Landlords.

There Is No Objection To The Proposal: In Order To Learn To Be A Poet, I Shall Try To Write A Sonnet. But The Thing You Must Try To Write, When You Do So, Is A Real Sonnet, And Not A Practice Sonnet.