Poet Lavinia Greenlaw recently found herself writing an opera libretto. “Singing is not a casual act. Opera (again, like poetry) works best when it refuses to be embarrassed about its artifice. Libretti work best when the lines are fluent and convincing, but also emphatically styled. As I have begun to learn in my own libretto-writing, it’s a question of texture rather than vocabulary. Rossini once said: “Give me a laundry list, and I will set it.” WH Auden points out that this is not so great a claim, since lists lend themselves to music particularly well. Any words can be used if they contain a space for the music and action and are strong enough to change shape without losing meaning. It’s like making the skin for some fantastical beast based on what it is going to do rather than what it might look like.”