At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.

Considering the wealth of poetic drama that has come down to us from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, it is surprising that so little of any value has been added since.

Writing for the page is only one form of writing for the eye. Wherever solemn inscriptions are put up in public places, there is a sense that the site and the occasion demand a form of writing which goes beyond plain informative prose. Each word is so valued that the letters forming it are seen as objects of solemn beauty.

The Mormon mission to Africa, as to other dark-skinned parts of the world, was for a long time hobbled by the racism of the movement's scripture.

"Love" is so short of perfect rhymes that convention allows half-rhymes like "move". The alternative is a plague of doves, or a kind of poem in which the poet addresses his adored both as "love" and as "guv" - a perfectly decent solution once, but only once, in a while.

Great poetry does not have to be technically intricate.

Lyric poetry is, of course, musical in origin. I do know that what happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page. When it's a question of typography, why not? Poets have done beautiful things with typography - Apollinaire's 'Calligrammes,' that sort of thing.