Back before the prose boom started, maybe with Dickens or Hugo, and which came of age perhaps during the Lost Generation, most famous writers were poets. Poe, Byron, Dickenson. Poetry is interesting. It can be grand, like Dante, in which case it is epic. It can be elaborate, like “The Raven” or “Ozymandias”, in which case it is beautiful. Or it can be lazy, like Neruda, who is wholly tiresome and tedious.

Yet all good writers need to have a book of poetry, like all painters have to have a sketchbook. This is mine. Now, I don’t love poetry. Though “If” by Rudyard Kipling has become the new anthem of my life, and its wisdom is only growing in me as I age. However poetry taught me to use language. How to convey meaning within the strictures of beats and rhythms and rhymes. It is like a mental workout, like a session at the gym after which you are tired but at the same time satisfied. Poetry makes us write better.