The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

A cabaret song has got to be written - for the middle voice, ideally - because you've got to hear the wit of the words. And a cabaret song gives the singer room to act, more even than an opera singer.

In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.

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.

Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops.

What happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page.

At four lines, with the quatrain, we reach the basic stanza form familiar from a whole range of English poetic practice. This is the length of the ballad stanza, the verse of a hymn, and innumerable other kinds of verse.