Thanks to the recent “Shakespeare As Catholic” conference in Rochester, I’ve finally discovered that I like poetry. Except I have to call it verse. The word poetry has somehow been permanently fused with whiny guys with 70s-style straight hair. And Hallmark. But verse, apparently, has a very simple secret.

You have to read it out loud.

If you read it out loud, you might even laugh out loud. Which is why I have to share this anonymous medieval ballad:

Love Not Me For Comely Grace

Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part,
No, nor for my constant heart!
For those may fail or turn to ill,
   So you and I shall sever.
Keep therefore a true woman’s eye,
And love me still, but know not why.
So hast you the same reason still,
  To dote on me as ever.