So many of us use words in ways we want others to value. We write letters, emails and poems. We tell stories to our children or our friends. Human beings have done this as far back as history can record, and the verbal arts are an intrinsic part of all societies. Indeed, they have become a defining element in national cultures. Today we have education systems, the commercial arena of publishing and bookselling, and increasingly the world of electronic media, all laying claim to the knowledge of literary value in the name of cultural power. At the same time more and more of us are writing, reading, speaking and listening, and making up different communities that value the verbal arts in ways rewarding to ourselves. As the separation between what used to be called 'high art' and 'popular culture' dissolves, there is a real problem for many of us in deciding what to read, or to whom we want to listen. This book looks at many areas in the verbal arts that have been made peripheral in conventional criticism and aesthetics, and asks how, given their importance to their communities, they might be valued. Lynette Hunter examines written and spoken texts that don't fit the conventional patterns, such as e-mail, letters, diaries, writing and speaking from the Black diaspora, women's writing and electronic texts.