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The music just tends to be a vehicle for that poetry.

Rap is poetry set to music. But to me it's like a jackhammer.

Poetry is really a way of sharing feelings and ideas.

I write poetry, and I put it to a beat - I mean, that's what they call rap.

It's bad poetry executed by people that can't sing. That's my definition of Rap.

I think rap definitely has its place in the art world. I think it is an art form. But, just like any art form, you can misuse it.

Rap and spoken word have reawakened the country to poetry in itself. Texting and Twitter encourage creative uses of casual language, in ways I have celebrated widely. But we've fallen behind on savoring the formal layer of our language.

There's no musical landscape to poetry. It has somewhat of a higher standard than songs, I think.

I'd rather not get into what I'm talking about lyrically. I think it's impossible not to demystify a song when saying what it's about. Music and art can be damaged severely by too much information; I say that as somebody that has participated in that.

I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important.