The place of poetry.(Critical Essay)

My grandfather was a self-made man, a child of immigrants, and a dandy. In later life, he lined his closets with neckties and waistcoats, with bowler hats and two-toned bucks. He enjoyed cutting a figure, as they say, and fancied himself a public man, an entrepreneur, a man of influence. I can remember rooting around in his study as a boy and discovering numerous books on public speaking, filled with apothegms and off-color jokes meant to tickle an audience or frame an argument. I'm not sure how often he was called upon to ascend a dais, but he was well prepared for the occasion.

As his collection of toast-master chrestomathies attests, he understood the power of ...