>the way they use it as a tool, even when they are being poetic, and the way we treat it as a poem, even when we are using it as a tool

It's an interesting thought but I'm not convinced that we every come all that close to saying something serious!

I wonder if this is a bit of a cop out. Poetry and art are often claimed by the underdog. America is perceived as having more money and power so we "Europeans" claim to be more "instinsically artistic".

Neither versions of English stand up very well to treatment by opera companies - Verdi still sounds better in Italian than in any English translation that I have heard. The older English of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Keats is a shared heritage and very little of its poetry have been brought forward into any of the modern variants of English. If anything, "American" is regarded, arguably, as the chosen language of popular music, particularly the music which has its origins in black culture.

I don't hear great poetic oratory from either leaders of the Republicans in the USA or the Conservatives in Britain. Whatever propelled George W Bush to the top is acknowledged, even by his staunchest supporters, not to be his great public speaking voice. Here, William Hague sounds a little like a sledgehammer (personal opinion), there may be some wit but very little poetry. Both Blair and Clinton were(are) able to sound more poetic as they both claim(ed) to be able to speak for the downtrodden, regardless of whether they actually did anything about it.

The best remembered poetic speeches in politics include "I have a Dream ..." http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/king_b12.htm and "ask not what your country can do for you ..." http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/j012061.htm it may not just be about language but about the marriage of language and sentiment. "Watch my lips ... no new taxes ..." may have been a good catch-phrase but it is hardly poetry.

The celts, within British culture have always claimed the upper hand in poetry. We remember Richard Burton, a Welshman, for his poetic interpretation but great English actors like Michael Caine more for his verve and sense of humour. Black British poets like Benjamin Zephaniah, like Black Americans (probably wrong current PC terms) have also been successful in claiming their right to use their own language(s) in poetry. Here is an example from Benjamin Zephania:

Speak

Yu teach me
Air Pilots language
De language of
American Presidents
A Royal Family
Of a green unpleasant land.
It is
Authorised
Approved
Recycled
At your service.
I speak widda bloody tongue,
Wid Nubian tones
Fe me riddims
Wid built in vibes.
Yu dance.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Den/3776/arg9.html

To me, art always has an edge of danger. That's why artists have so often been poor and oppressed. To be a true poet it helps to have very little to lose.

To claim poetry in our respective "dialects" seems to be a matter of how things sound in the ear of the beholder. I instinctively dislike some of the sharp "English" voices found in forties films, yet I could listen to Whoopi Goldberg's inviting tones forever, regardless of what she is actually saying. I love the hard edged sounds of early English punk music but I can't stand the honeyed tones Barry Manilow. We all hear dialects, based on our own experience, even John Fowles.