My wife doesn’t read much poetry, but devours novels – hundreds each year of all kinds. She indulges, now and again, in a spot of chick-lit. At the moment, she’s reading a book called The Chocolate Lovers’ Club by Carole Matthews.
On page 183 of this novel is the following paragraph:
The poetry book that’s being launched is an anthology and I notice that there are several of the contributors mingling nervously with the guests. You can tell that they’re poets as they’re wearing mainly velvet clothing with lots of scarves and some of them have on jaunty hats.
Velvet? Lots of scarves (inside!)? Jaunty hats? Does that description scream 'poet' to you?
To be honest, she could probably spot the poets far more easily by those who'd start re-arranging her first sentence to read:
The launch is for a poetry anthology and I notice several contributors mingling nervously with the guests.
