“That poet has courage,” said the high-collared student. “To dispense wholly with form....”
“Yes, it needs courage to write that,” said Avery Bird, who was narrowing his eyes and nodding his head slowly. “It is of course callow, but then so are the chickens of ostriches. Query, does it dispense with form? There is a sort of antiphony—pajamas and the Lord—the lovesick instructor and the scream—like the leeward and windward sides of a wall....”
Rhoda announced, “Some nameless person has just passed me a note apologising for the last poem. It was a letter really, which he or she passed me by mistake in place of a poem.”
Rhoda’s voice brushed the incident aside and everyone tried to look as wise as though nothing had happened. Mr. Bird, only slightly disconcerted, began to point out to his neighbor how bright was the promise of poetry in a land where even common correspondence had a rhythm of its own.
Rhoda read,
Answer to a Friend’s Letter
“For me is such a table set?
Shall such a gate receive me?
For I am scarred and shamed, and yet
Nor scars nor shame can grieve me.