- For those who know how to behave in the presence of the poetic spirit. - * As human beings we develop and evolve. Poets have the gift to make this intelligible, especially if we understand development as 'development against'. By means of verse a poet can give us a running commentary of his own growth and to the extent that he lives among us his work, in this genre, can ease our own passage through the contemporary doldrums. Verse can be a handy technique for explaining personal reality in terms of experience. Those who accept the poetic gift will find the present work helpful in that direction and to that end.