IF YOU CAN’T LICK ‘EM

As a former English teacher, I was heartened to find that Nick Owchar laments the loss of form and music in yet another collection of free verse trying to pass as poetry: “Truth and Lies That Press for Life” (Dec. 29). To those who prefer being published to writing poetry, I offer the following:

Forget the rhyme,

most editors advise.

Traditional is “out”--

like that brief candle of Macbeth’s.

Blame Ginsberg.

He’s the one that howled down

all future Frosts

(who must play tennis now

Without a net),

axed any would-be Audens

apt at every form,

warned off those wags

who might have walked

with Wilbur’s measured tread,

humiliated every Houseman

hound

who did it the old-fashioned way,

and so

made subtle rhyme seem obvious

as Poe.

But you who loved the magic of

Millay,

the power of Prufrock, and the

beat of a Benet,

need not dismay.

If you will simply shift your sense

and sound

around so they won’t blend and

echo in

the head long after unrhymed

lines are dead,

you’ll not just publish, you’ll be thought profound.

JAMES VAN WAGONER, SANTA BARBARA