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Kent Chadwick,

I have a comment to make about your criticism of Colleen J. McElroy's Travelling Music, [Jul-Aug Free Press, p. 16] especially the beginning of the title poem, and a comment to make about that stanza:

"This is not a planet I would want to inherit-
With its inventory of mountainous sorrows
There is hardly a place to lay a good night's
Sleep before tomorrow's bad news arrives,"

I believe the two metaphors in the second line, inventory and mountainous, are supportive and appropriate rather than 'weakening each other.'

I am 81 and probably stuck in my ways. I favor rhyme and meter although I read with pleasure the blank verse of Shakespeare and the King James Version. I believe much modern blank verse is the product of poets who just don't take the time to discover meter and rhyme that may add lyricism to their work. God knows English has sufficient redundancy for this purpose. Try this re-write of the four lines above:

"This is not a planet I would want to keep
With its inventory of mountainous sorrow.
There is hardly a place for a good night's sleep
Before hearing bad news of tomorrow."

Listen to a spontaneous rapper banging out meter and rhyme in real time - it is not hard to do. Most important, it can add beauty to ideas.

A failed amateur poet,
Clark Higgins