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This article is taken from PN Review 99, Volume 21 Number 1, September - October 1994.

Slow, Slow, Fresh Font Bryan Williamson

When teachers are in a cynical mode they are prone to remark that teaching would be easy were there no pupils. If pressed, they may add a rider to the effect that an absence of head-teachers might also be advantageous. To paraphrase then, typesetting poetry is very easy. A script appears: it is often in short lines: it often involves the use of space: it often appears in short, more or less coherent, blocks of words. Now, if there were no poets (and, if pressed, publishers also) would not life be just a bowl of jello? Poets are funny folk. Take a look at this:

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