The main problem with writing in verse is, if your fourth line doesn't come out right, you've got to throw four lines away and figure out a whole new way to attack the problem. So the mortality rate is terrific.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There are people who think it's easier to write books in verse, and it's definitely not.
The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.
What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose.
The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it.
I think poetry should be read very much like prose, except that the line breaks should be acknowledged somehow.
Many of today's verses are prose and bad prose.
And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better in respect to prose.
All the modern verse plays, they're terrible; they're mostly about the poetry. It's more important that the play is first.
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