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Finalist #10 in the Book Review Contest\xa0

[This is one of the finalists in the 2024 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I\u2019ll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you\u2019ve read them all, I\u2019ll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked]

I.

Suppose you were a newcomer to English literature, and having heard of this artistic device called \u2018poetry\u2019, wondered what it was all about and where it came from.\xa0 You might start by looking up some examples of poetry from each century, going back until you can\u2019t easily understand the English anymore, and find in the 16th century such poems as John Skelton\u2019s \u201cSpeke, Parott\u201d [sic]:

My name is Parrot, a byrd of Paradyse,
By Nature devised of a wonderowus kynde,
Deyntely dyeted with dyvers dylycate spyce,
Tyl Euphrates, that flode, dryveth me into Inde;
Where men of that countrey by fortune me fynde,
And send me to greate ladyes of estate;
Then Parot must have an almon or a date.