love set you going like a fat gold watch (open)

[higginbottom]

Esther is being entrepreneurial. In fact, she has set up a small booth in the Mansion foyer with a sign that reads:

Let Me Write You a Poem (Or Equivalent Prose)

Of course, she hasn't had any takers yet, so she's feeling a little discouraged. But no matter! The point is, she's there, sitting and looking very prim and proper.




Looks can be deceiving, though she herself may not realize that yet.

Comments

[ghostmaster]

"No, I want a poetry lesson," brightly. "Plus, I don't think it counts as history. Not for me."

[higginbottom]

"Well, free verse came about in the early 20th century - T.S. Eliot was a huge force in getting it started, though some might argue it was already beginning with Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman," she says, a touch wearily. Esther was not expecting this.

[ghostmaster]

"Never heard of them," says Wei Wuxian, cheerful in the face of her weariness. "Where did they learn? What were their primary themes?"

[higginbottom]

This is starting to feel like college all over again.

"Eliot was a modernist - he wrote of the alienation of modern man," she explains. "Dickinson and Whitman were earlier, in the 19th century. Dickinson is possibly the mother of modern lyric free verse, while Whitman wrote of the common people."

[ghostmaster]

"I don't know half of those words, either." His delight is mounting. There's really nothing better than learning new information from someone only grudgingly interested in sharing it.