I agree with Charles. Wouldn’t put it as right and left-handed. It is not the case that uninspired poetry equates to verse, however good. I think (I think) that verse comes from a more conscious level, probably uses wit rather than waits for the ineffable to become effable in some less planned way. It is also possible when writing ‘verse’ to get a marvellous ‘given’ something or other, but it will probably be more at the verbal level. Poetry will be at the level of the ‘given’ most of the time - a fusing of the feeling and the diction. Poetry can’t be ‘in the service of . . .‘, generally speaking. Pale Fire is not poetry. I’m ready to admit that this may be marginally a matter of genre; but genre itself inflects the depth-to-surface charge, which has to start from deep and work up to a marvellous surface. Penny.