One Does Not Become A Guru By

The Lullaby Is The Spell Whereby The Mother Attempts To Transform Herself Back From An Ogre To A Saint.

Babies Are Not Brought By Storks And Poets Are Not Produced By Workshops.

For Poets Today Or In Any Age, The Choice Is Not Between Freedom On The One Hand And Abstruse French Forms On The Other. The Choice Is Between The Nullity And Vanity Of Our First Efforts, And The Developing Of A Sense Of Idiom, Form, Structure, Metre, Rhythm, Line - All The Fundamental Characteristics Of This Verbal Art.

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.

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.