Great Regulars: You can almost see Margery spinning

out of James's clutch as she yells, "Tilly, vally, straw, let be I say!" The rage and brutality in the poem cohabit with a certain lust for the life of the senses, and certainly a lust for language. Our Laureate of rhetoric knows how to work with the torsion of argument, but his ultimate triumph as a poet is that his metrical feet are on the ground--and that ground is the rich soil of the English vernacular.

Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale by John Skelton

~~~~~~~~~~~