OK - here goes then
Against Rhyming
For U.A. Fanthorpe, who found me weeping on
the road to Jericho, having fallen among critics.
“Rhyme gets you noticed”. But it’s just a flier
To get the punters near the proper stuff.
It’s to free verse a poet should aspire;
Rhyming and chiming isn’t strong enough
To carry messages of any weight
And real involvement in the here and now
Demands the rawness of the naked state
Of language. One can just imagine how
Imaginative thought would feel the pinch
Of being squeezed into a villanelle
Whose rigid metre wouldn’t give an inch
When freedom’s feet demanded space to swell.
Who in their right mind would contrive a sonnet
If anything worthwhile depended on it?
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