HOW TO WRITE POETRY

Better go down upon your marrow bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.

W. B. Yeats, "Adam's Curse," 1904

Why You Must Study

Very occasionally, a beginning poet who has read little somehow -- spontaneously -- manages to write something that the world accepts is fine poetry and continues long to respect.

But this almost never happens.

Nearly always a beginning poet is simply a bad, that is to say, unskilled poet, even if his work gets published.

For a vast amount of bad poetry gets published. A very, very high percentage of what is published is, more or less, dreck: poorly written, dull, or slight. (See Sturgeon's Law.)

So to learn to write good poetry, beginning poets must reconcile themselves to a long apprenticeship, involving a large amount of reading, thinking, and writing. Before you can write a good poem, you will probably have to learn to write a lot of bad verse. No "prose poems" for you, my tyro; at least not for a while. No. Learn to write in lines that stop before the far margin, lines with rhythm and feet and meter. Learn what a caesura is, and a strophe, and a hendecasyllable. Trust me. To be as good as you can be, you will have to learn how to write so-called traditional verse. It doesn't have to rhyme, although rhyming is a useful skill. But it must scan, or you must absolutely know why it does not have to.

For the best poems are grammatical, rhythmic, metric; nearly all of them. Grammar, rhythm, metre, capitalization, and punctuation give a poet precise control over his effects, over his art. So, unless you are that one in a hundred thousand, or one in a million of beginning versifiers who somehow achieves precise control over your poetry by happy accident, and avoids slop, you must undergo a long apprenticeship. Resign yourself to it. It's worth it, to learn to do your art well and to realize you know what you're doing.

Starting Out

Most poets learn to write verse by reading a great quantity of it, perhaps fifty or a hundred times the amount they will ever write. You should ponder the verse you read. Is it good (which, remember, means skilled, competent, outstanding)? Is it memorable? Could anything the poet says have been better, more memorably or compactly phrased? Is it musical? Is the thought clear? Is it strongly evocative? Are the sounds the best the poet could have chosen? Does it have the right rhythm? How does this poem compare with others of its kind? Does it measure up with the best in its class? Is there anything meretricious, cheap, shoddy, slight, or hackneyed about it?

Remember: A poem is usually verse with something wrong about it.

When you have read a good deal of verse, presumably with pleasure (or why would you be interested in writing poetry?), you ought to think about the difference between mere verse and poetry. Do you think there is any difference? What is that difference? Do you think you will be a writer of verse primarily, an Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker, or Richard Armour, a writer of vers de société; or will you learn to write poems that even critics agree are poems, like, for example, Tennyson? Tennyson wrote so-called occasional and patriotic poems (for which he has been criticized), like a good poet laureate (which he was), but he also wrote work which we must decently respect, works which even critics agree is (in the hifalutin sense) poetry.

The fact is that poetry didn't have the hifalutin meaning it has today until, in the late 19th century, certain poets (Poe? George Meredith?) promulgated a theory of so-called "pure poetry". Then it came to be more distinctly realized that some persons formerly thought of as poets were mere versifiers, poetasters.

This distinction had always been made, in one way or another, but in the 19th century the "pure poets" intellectually lifted themselves above the popular versemakers.

Writing clever, well-formed verse is an honorable trade, and for the real "poet" a vital skill. So if you want to be a poet I urge you to learn how to write verse, every kind of verse. Read manuals of prosody, books on the techniques of verse-writing: every one you can find.

I have.

To learn the difference between "mere verse" and real poems, read literary criticism of poetry. Read the whole history of literary criticism, including so-called "theory" (which usually involves isms like modernism, structuralism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, and so forth). Most of this will not help you write poetry, but it will at least orient you in the art of and thought of your time.

Read what great poets have said about poetry, especially Milton, Housman, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Yeats.

Since Shakespeare is the greatest of all poets, IMHO, read him thoroughly. Read the literary criticism of his plays, and the technical criticism of his verse and prose.

Think, also, continually of the differences between poetry and prose, and between verse and prose. Study the etymology of the words "poetry", "prose", and "verse" in a thick dictionary. (You should own or have access to at least one unabridged dictionary; one that tells you where the word you're looking up originated, and how it got to mean what it does today.)

You should read all the poets you can whom the world respects, and ask yourself which are the very best. This means reading the classics, Homer, Vergil, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton, and the rest, and in the original as well as in translations if you possibly can. But read lots of translations. Ask yourself, What makes a good translation? Learn about the process of translation. Learn to translate. Make some translations yourself.

Learn everything you can about language. Learn especially about your native language and the chief world languages. Study linguistics if you can.

And read all the skilled prose you can. Read the best novelists and short-story writers. Again, read the reputed classics as well as what you enjoy. Test yourself against them. Ask yourself what makes a certain prose writer outstanding. Remember, Ezra Pound said, "Poetry should be at least as well written as prose." Dare you let your poems be less fascinating, less well written than your prose competitors?

Read newspapers, especially quality broadsheet newspapers. (In North America this means The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, The National Post.) Read their witty, incisive columnists. Read lead articles and editorials and op-ed pages. Learn how to write everything in one of those papers.

Words are what you write with; so you must master words. Look up every word you don't know in a dictionary, and learn to use that word. Learn where you can use it properly and accurately. Learn where it is the best word, the only word. Among the writers who advocate this was Vladimir Nabokov, no slouch at using the incisive word.

Coleridge said that poetry is the best words in the best order. Listen to the sound of words in poems and prose. Learn rhetoric and elocution. Learn how to vary word order for effect. Learn how to read poems (and prose) aloud dramatically. Learn all the several hundred schemes and figures (i.e., literary devices) in the best rhetoric books. Learn to use them where they can best be used. Shakespeare and the Elizabethans did. Dare you be less skilled than they?

You can't have too much technique. Learn all the writing technique you can. Learn how to make your poems look and sound like poems. Don't be content just to put words on the page in the best possible way. Make the poem tell the reader how best to read it for effect. Shakespeare is the best at this. Study him!

An architect looks at and studies buildings. You must study poems: how they are built. Read encyclopedia articles about poetry and verse and prose.

You must learn to write poetry as a plumber learns plumbing. And, at the end, you must do it as well and as honestly as he.

Making a Living

Unfortunately, in nearly every place in the world you cannot expect to make a living by writing verse. So you must also figure out a way to make a living. Don't die for your art. Live long, to write a great deal and get your vengeance on those who thought you were foolish to write.

So you must have a day job to fall back on, something you can do to make a good buck. The usual occupation for poets is teaching, although some get jobs in libraries or bookstores or writing prose for books, advertising, and newspapers. Robert Graves wrote historical novels and articles. Ezra Pound wrote literary journalism. T.S. Eliot became an editor and publisher.

In the United States there are many lucrative literary awards and grants and writer-in-residence positions at universities. These are few in Canada, and in Canada they are usually for one year only. I would not count on this income in Canada.

In Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts gives grants to writers at all stages of their careers. Provincial arts councils also give money to writers. It is practical to investigate these councils; I did at one time. As Hugh Garner said, "I find it hard to be against anything that gives money to writers."

Hemingway said that if a writer needed a day job to support himself, it should either be one that involved writing (something) or one that had nothing to do with writing. That is why many poets teach or produce radio or have craft jobs in the media. For myself, I have always feared losing myself in hack work; so I have had a day job for many years that has nothing to do with writing. But it is very physical, and it keeps my body in reasonable shape.

For you must keep your health. Poets notoriously die young. Don't. Take care of your physical and mental health above everything else. Be determined to live long.

Above all, though I want to encourage you to write well and to write much, perhaps the kindest thing I can do is encourage you not to be a poet if you can help it. It's very difficult; more difficult than, if you are a beginner, you can possibly guess. It has been very hard on me.

It's no fun being without money, and poets are notoriously poor. Don't expect much respect for your art; there are too many awful poets, and the average person -- even the average poet -- doesn't have much appreciation of poetry. Poetry isn't considered important by most people in our society. If it was, poets would be feted like sports heroes.

So if you do become a poet, don't expect much appreciation. Write for yourself, and for a few who like good writing and like to feel. Know more about poetry than your audience, and write, as Wordsworth said memorably (in his unconsciously sexist way), "as a man speaking to men."

Study the best writers of your time, whether poets or prosers, and try to learn to write and speak directly and simply. That is usually the best way. Write in the language that is alive in your time. I learned a great deal about this from reading Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), whose language, as he got older, became simpler and more powerful.

Write simply, and let them have it good and hard.

And remember that writer who said, "Writing well is learning what to leave out."

Actually Doing It

Given that he or she has studied poems, how does a poet actually write a new poem?

With me, it usually depends on inspiration. That is, something I am reading triggers an idea. (My late friend, the young composer Jack Adrian, used to call it The Idea.) Perhaps it triggers a thought. Perhaps I suddenly have the desire to rewrite some other author's poem. Perhaps I hear or feel a rhythm, and words coming to me in that rhythm.

I have to have a notepad on me. (Part of the art of writing poetry is preparing for moments of inspiration.) I sit down and immediately start writing, usually in ballpoint pen. I try to get down all the words that are flowing through me. They nearly always quickly get worse -- less inspired, more stupid. But at least I have got something down.

I continue, until it all runs down to gibberish.

The rest is revision. Endless revision.

There are poets, I think Christopher Dewdney used to be one, who seem to believe that the first inspiration is best. Myself, I believe that the first lines I write are likely to be melodic and interesting, possibly the best lines in the poem. But they are not likely to be a complete poem. A complete poem is not likely to be there. Unfortunately, I am going to have to make a complete poem from what I have been given.

Occasionally, I have been given a nearly complete poem, complete in all its limbs. But usually the poem will not be finished for months, years, or decades, if ever. As T.S. Eliot said, "Poems are not finished, they are abandoned."

Revision is frustrating, but necessary -- in my opinion. One has to take the risk that one will wreck one's first inspiration without replacing it by anything better. One has to shorten everything -- that is the major move -- but one will also find oneself adding things.

I believe in looking at the work over and over again, asking oneself if one has really achieved something valuable and complete. Does it work? If not, try to focus it. And try to work it to a climax lightly foreshadowed earlier, a climax that comes out of the logic of the piece.

My friend Robert J. Sawyer the science-fiction writer does not believe in inspiration. He believes that one simply sits in the chair and writes and revises. He believes, I think, that the writer should have a fixed routine and try to write at a specific time each day for a certain time. It is true that this seems to work well for writers of prose. By sitting down and simply writing at a particular time and place I believe a writer of prose can generate words and works.

However, I do not think I have ever managed to write a poem this way. No inspiration, no poem. Not for me.

Publishing

Once you've written and revised your masterpiece to perfection, what do you do with it?

Well, you could do what Emily Dickinson did. She tied her poems into bundles with ribbons, and left them in jars.

I do not recommend this. Most of us have a disgraceful itch to be rich and famous. If you put your poems in jars, probably no one will ever hear of you. Nearly impossible though it is that you will become famous and admired from your verse, let alone rich, you might as well try. Do it in a sane way.

Do what I tell you. I mean it. Do exactly the following until you know why to do something else.

# # #

Take a clean sheet of white 20-pound bond paper. (If you are going to print your work from a computer printer, you will probably use standard photocopy paper instead. Whichever you use, each sheet will measure, of course, 8 1/2" by 11".) In the upper left corner, about one and a quarter inches from the top and at least an inch from the left side, type your real name. Type it in the slightly formal manner by which you are usually known by strangers, for example Franklin Knickerbocker or Franklin W. Knickerbocker.

On the next lines, immediately below this line and flush with it on the left margin, type your full address with postal code, and -- perhaps -- your e-mail address and phone number. (This can all be single-spaced. It might even be in a slightly smaller typeface than the rest of the page.)

An inch or so below the bottom of the address portion, type the title of your poem in the center of its line. (The title should be at least as large as the typeface of the main body of the poem. It can be just a little larger. It should be underscored if possible; it should unmistakably convince the reader it is the title.)

If you are using your real name, skip down at least three spaces and start typing your poem.

(But if you are using a pseudonym, double-space below your title and center the phrase by [your pseudonym] in the line below the title.

Leave a three-line space below the title or byline. Type the rest of the poem. This should be in Courier typeface, 10 characters to the inch (I don't know what that is in centimeters). The body of the poem should probably be on a 60-character line, and be double-spaced, with a triple space between stanzas.

Ideally, the poem's longest line should be centered, and all other complete lines should begin flush left with this longest line.

Leave an inviolable right margin of about one inch or 1.25".

If a line is so long it must be broken so as not to enter the right margin, double-space as usual to the next line, indent about five spaces, and type the remainder. You'll find you're able to get about 25 or 26 double-spaced lines on a page. (Of course, there will be fewer if you have several stanzas with triple spaces between them.)

As you approach the bottom of the page, if the poem is going to continue to another page, after the last line of the poem you are going to include, double-space and type in the center of this line either [stanza continues next page] or [new stanza begins next page].

That should leave you at the bottom of the page with a bottom margin of about 1 1/2".

At the upper left of each page, where your name and address were on the first page, you should put your last name and the title (or some shorter version of the title). For example, Yeats: He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace, or Yeats: He Bids . . . Perhaps you should underline this version of the title.

Number each succeeding page (after the first) at the right top, to the right of your last name and the title. Number the page either with a numeral or the word Page [2 or whatever].

On each page after the first, two or three lines below your name and the title, type in the center of the line either [stanza continues from last page] or [new stanza].

A double-space below this line, continue on with your poem.

At the end of the poem, double- or triple-space again after the final line. Type in the center of the next line THE END or -30- or five number signs, each separated by a single space (i.e., # # # # #).

That's it. These final signs indicate to the editor and printer that the poem is finished. They will be left out when the poem is printed.

# # #

When you have accumulated about six poems (most will be only one-page long), type out an About the Author page. Under the title About the Author it should say the following:

[Your name] was born in [Your birth town] in [Your birth year]. [He/she] graduated from [your high school or university]. [He/she] has published poems [or novels or short stories] in [Your list of little magazines where your work has been published].

That's all. The whole should be under 50 words long.

# # #

Go to a large city public or university library. Find the poetry magazines, and write down a list of the addresses to which the editors suggest you should send your poetry for publication. Get the addresses exactly.

Take the pile of sheets of your poems and fold them in three, from the bottom toward the top, then from the top toward the bottom. The top edge should then be within 1/4" of the bottom edge. Address a standard, good-quality white or manilla #9 envelope (4" x 9"; 10.2 cm x 22.9 cm), to yourself. Use your complete address, and don't forget the postal code if any. Do not seal this envelope. Put sufficient stamps on this envelope to return your poems to yourself. (If they are foreign stamps, you can buy International Reply Coupons at your postal outlet. When I was submitting poems to American magazines, I used American stamps I obtained from the postmaster at the nearest American post office. I sent him a postal money order in American dollars and asked him to send me stamps in standard amounts.) Take the folded sheets, the About the Author page, and the unsealed envelope. Put them in a larger, manilla or white #10 envelope (4 1/8" x 9 1/2"; 10.5 cm x 24.1 cm).

Address this, the larger envelope, to a specific poetry editor at a specific poetry magazine (if you have the editor's name). Weigh the package (you probably need a good postal scale, which you can buy at a stationery or office supply store), affix the proper amount of postage, seal the envelope and mail it.

Probably you will receive the smaller envelope and your poems back in about six weeks, with a printed rejection slip. If so, examine the poems to make sure they are in suitable condition, address another small and larger envelope, and mail the poems as soon as possible out to another magazine on your list.

Continue this process until all the poems are published.

I used to have a notebook in which I drew columns of the date in which I had sent out poems, the names of the poems, the magazine to which I had sent them, and the result of the submission -- Accepted or Rejected. Perhaps there could also be a column for the issue of the magazine in which they were published.

# # #

Now I used to do exactly what I have told you to do. At first I submitted 75 poems without an acceptance. I eventually got 8 poems published. At the time I ceased this process, I was getting a poem published every few submissions. Why did I stop?

Long story. I became very dissatified with my work and wanted to revise everything I had written. I wanted to get to a higher level of poetry.

The body of imagery I was using -- derived from reading hundreds of years worth of English and American poetry -- also seemed to have run out.

I decided to work on a play in verse instead of lyric poetry.

I got involved with searching for, buying and fixing up a house with my girlfriend.

I decided that I was very ignorant, and that I was going to spend a good long while reading instead of writing.

So I got away from publishing my work.

Eventually, I seemed to recover from my funk (or writer's block, if you think of it that way. I don't).

But I haven't gone back to making submissions. Why is that?

For one thing, I had been away from submitting my poetry for so long (about 12 years) that I would have had to check out the poetry magazines, make a new list of addresses, and start the process again.

For another, I was much more involved with actually writing my poetry than I was with caring whether I was published.

For another, the Internet was becoming a big noise, under its original guise as the Information Superhighway. I heard a lot of buzz about how the Internet was going to change everything, one part of which would be publishing. People with good Web sites would supposedly become famous and prosperous.

So, flush with enthusiasm, I wanted to set up a Web site, publish my best poems there, and eliminate the middle man.

So that's what I did.

Was this the right thing to do? I don't know.

All I know is that it suited me at that time.

Why Should You Write?

# # #

[To be Continued and Revised]

Sturgeon's Law

In its classic form, Sturgeon's Law (first promulgated by American science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) states: 90% of everything is crap.

It is believed that Sturgeon's law first referred to literature. Later thinkers realized that it could be generalized to all human endeavour.

Valuable Books on Writing

Aristotle. Poetics. Numerous editions.

Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Third edition, Oxford, 1990. Originally published 1965.

Corbett probably knows more about rhetoric than anyone alive, and he organizes his book well to teach it to you. The speeches he selects for analysis are excellent reading in themselves, let alone for the analysis. Strongly recommended. You should, perhaps, read the first edition as well: it has a slightly different choice of speeches.

Demetrius. On Style. London: Everyman Editions.

Deutsch, Babette. Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms, fourth edition, 1981. Originally published by Funk & Wagnalls, 1957.

Deutsch was a New York City poet. This is the best book I know of to teach you poetic terms and poetic forms. But it does not mention the ghazal or qasida.

Eliot, T.S. Selected Essays. London: Faber and Faber.

Besides being one of the 20th century's finest poets, Eliot had wonderful taste and judgement. He affected literary criticism for the better. If you can, read his Collected Essays; hell, read and think about every word he wrote.

Fraser, G.S. Metre, Rhyme and Free Verse. London: Methuen, 1970.

Fraser discusses the various structural methods of writing English verse, and has some excellent observations about their effects. I question and vehemently disagree with several of his scansions, but this is a thoughtful, interesting book.

Fowler, H. W. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford, 1926.

Fussell, Jr.; Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. New York: Random House, 1965. Revised edition, 1977.

Fussell is an ivy-league university scholar, and an interesting thinker. His book clearly guides you to the meters and poetic forms, and has interesting examples and reflections. The revised edition is much improved, with a incisive and fascinating section on free verse.

Grebanier, Bernard. Playwriting. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1961.

Grebanier was a teacher at Brooklyn College. This is the best book I know of about how to write for the theatre. His chapters on play structure are fascinating.

Gross, Harvey. Sound and Form in Modern Poetry: A Study in Prosody from Thomas Hardy to Robert Lowell. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1964.

Like Enid Hamer's book, Gross's shows the characteristic prosody and prosody tricks of a long list of poets. Learn from this book!

Halliday, F. E. The Poetry of Shakespeare's Plays. London: Gerald Duckworth, 1954.

Shakespeare is the Master of All Who Scribble, and Halliday shows you:

1. specifically when Shakespeare used verse and when prose;
2. how the Bard varied the level and texture of his diction;

and more and more of the greatest secrets of the Greatest of Versifiers.

Hamer, Enid. The Metres of English Poetry. London: Methuen & Co., 1930.

Like Gross's book, Hamer's addresses the most common metres of English poetry, but, in her case, through a long list of specifically English poets.

Harbage, Alfred. As They Liked It. London: The Macmillan Company, 1947.

Harbage was an English academic specializing in Shakespeare. His thoughtful focus in this book was on Shakespeare's moral artistry. He argues that Shakespeare tried not to teach, but to give pleasure without offending. Beautifully written, this book has gradually changed my art.

Jerome, Judson. The Poet and the Poem. Cincinatti, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books, 1974. Revised edition, 1979.

-------. Poetry Handbook. Cincinatti, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books, 1980.

-------. On Being a Poet. Cincinatti, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books, 1984.

The late Judson Jerome was a New York State poet who taught for years at Antioch. He eventually quit to write fulltime. He knew a great deal about poetry, and explains it beautifully. Poetry Handbook is a shorter rewrite of The Poet and the Poem. Read both.

Joseph, Sister Miriam. Rhetoric in Shakespeare's Time. New York and Burlingame: A Harbinger Book. Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1962.

The good sister analyzes Shakespeare's plays for their rhetorical figures. The reader gradually realizes that Shakespeare knew more about rhetoric than anyone in the history of the world.

Kerr, Walter. How Not To Write A Play. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956.

Kerr, a superb non-fiction writer, was drama critic for the New York Herald Tribune and then the New York Times. He died in the 1980s. (His wife, Jean Kerr, was a successful comic playwright in the 1960s, the author of Please Don't Eat the Daisies.) This book is the best introduction to the problems plaguing English-language theatre from the 1640s up to the 1950s; it remains an excellent guide to the essence of theatre in all eras. Kerr's remarks on the value of poetry in theatre, and its use in Shakespeare in particular, haunt me. Also study Kerr's passage about themes and theses. I liked this book so much I wrote Kerr a fan letter, which he graciously answered.

Lanham, Richard A. A handlist of Rhetorical Terms: A Guide for Students of English Literature. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.

This is a better book than Sister Miriam Joseph's for learning the figures of rhetoric. It is also a good reference book for rhetoric.

Longinus. On the Sublime. London: Everyman Editions.

Longinus wanted to understand why some literary passages seem (and sound) impressive, and why others fail. If you read this book you will learn something about the sublime (or at least the emotionally impressive) in literature. Given that the 20th century produced mainly an ironic literature, a little sublimity might be what we need.

Maxim, Hudson. The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1910.

My copy of this book is lost or stolen. Maxim (1853-1927) was a New York State inventor and literary figure. His book concerned imagery, figures of speech, and thought in poetry, for each of which he had numerous examples of effective usage; for example, from Milton or Poe. He also had invented his own interesting terminology for each aspect of poetry: "tropery" was, I think, his name for figures of speech. "Tri-tem-potentry" was his name for the ideal poetic style. Does anyone know more about this?

Olson, Charles. "Projective Verse". Included in Human Universe, Grove Press, New York.

This is one of the most important essays on how to write poetry in the late 20th century. Olson, the beat author of The Maximus Poems, advocates breaking up the line to imitate and parallel the action of the breath in reading. Not to be missed, but dangerous and incomplete.

Pound, Ezra. The ABC of Reading. New York: New Directions, 1934.

-------. Literary Essays of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1954.

Old Ezra was one of the most important 20th century critics. Read everything by him that you can, even though he is sometimes wrong and much of his own poetry bends or violates his own rules. But beware: he seldom mentions sound -- melopoeia or euphony -- though I argue that psychological sound is the most shamefully neglected feature in contemporary poetry.

Salter, F. M. The Art of Writing, edited by H. V. Weekes. Toronto: Ryerson Press, McGraw-Hill of Canada Limited, 1971.

Salter was one of the teachers (at a western Canadian university) of Canadian author W. O. Mitchell, author of Who Has Seen the Wind?. Salter's is a good, if slightly old-fashioned, book.

Strunk, Jr., William; and White, E. B. The Elements of Style. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1959.

A basic book that has taught generations of Americans to write better prose. Invaluable for the poet as well. But I think that a comma after the second-last item in a series (A, B and C) is optional; it depends on the tempo and effect required. And I am quite sure the authors are wrong about how to use apostrophes.

[To Be Continued and Revised]

Home | About Grant | What's New | Links | Coming Soon | Send E-Mail

Last somewhat modified: 4:55 PM 21/01/2004