I don't know of anyone who says exactly what Len reports that XJ Kennedy said. The closest is Tim Steele's statement that "meter is organized rhythm," which comes close to stating an equivalence, but not quite. Frost's "strain of rhythm upon a metre" is similar, as well, to Tim Steele's statement:
"It is from this interplay between the unchanging metrical pattern and the many-shaded rhythms of natural speech—this interplay between the steady underlying pulse of the meter and the variable phrases, clauses, and sentences riding over it—that iambic verse draws its vitality and delight."
Unchanging metrical patterns running up against the many-shaded rhythms of natural speech. Pretty much the same as "strain of rhythm upon a metre", I think.
I was going through some back-threads at Gazebo, and I came across a discussion of Pope's "The sound must seem an Echo to the Sense" (and about the next 18 lines) wherein Alicia Stallings commented, among many other interesting things, "Pope is not so much playing with meter here, in my opinion, as with the rhythm, alliteration, quality of vowels, caesuras, and assonance." Thus, it seems that Alicia would also disagree with any equivalence between meter and rhythm. Are you sure XJ said he views them as the same thing?
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