“This is what rhyme does. In a couplet, the first rhyme is like a quest...” — James Fenton Quote

This is what rhyme does. In a couplet, the first rhyme is like a question to which the second rhyme is an answer. The first rhyme leaves something in the air, some unanswered business. In most quatrains, space is created between the rhyme that poses the question and the rhyme that gives the answer - it is like a pleasure deferred.

In my opinion, it is easier to avoid iambic rhythms, when writing in syllabics, if you create a line or pattern of lines using odd numbers of syllables.

English poetry begins whenever we decide to say the modern English language begins, and it extends as far as we decide to say that the English language extends.

My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don't regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war.

My dream is to have a house on the beach, even just a little shack somewhere so I can wake up, have coffee, look at dolphins, be quiet and breathe the air.

Growing up, there was this explosion of B television. 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air,' you have 'Family Matters,' 'A Different World.' I had examples - of black children, black families, black women, black men - that represented who I was.

Dad went to Canada to learn how to fly with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He took me on my first airplane ride, where I could have a hand on the stick.

Los Angeles is a city known as much for it's sun as for its stars and it's dirty air.